It is sucking the very soul from my tiny, withered husk.
I see my little improvements in other things. I can do double frappes, now. I have mostly figured out the front, back, side, front (whatever the hell that is called) pattern for barre work. I try to keep my spirits up with this stuff. But petite allegro. Man. It's so defeating.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the component parts. I can do glissades and assemblés (patooie!). Pas de chats and jetés. But... at the kind of tempo I am being asked for I can basically just trip over myself repeatedly. I just sort of flail around randomly and try not to run in to anyone until the music is over and I get to stop. Apparently we are supposed to be aiming for "ballon" which is basically a fancy French way of saying "you don't hit the ground like an elephant" but right now I can't even get myself OFF the ground in the first place. I kind of look like I'm doing a very confused tap dance for a minute or two. A little soft shoe routine.
Ra-ta-ta-ta-TA!
I thought I was the only one who got tripped up by petit allegro at fast tempos. I finally nailed the fast petit allegro exercise in my grade 4/5 class--but I had to practice it OUTSIDE of class. I can do freaking double pirouttes and triple pique turns and my pointe work is fabulous and grand allegro is great, but you give me petit allegro, and I feel like I'm in ballet 1 all over again.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely not alone! Our combinations change constantly, so as soon as I have alllllmost figured out what is going on I feel like I have to start all over from scratch!
Deleteomg. we are doing glissades and assemblés right now and tombe/pas de burre/glissade/pas de chat something something something something.... and i feel like if i just randomly hopped like a bunny across the floor id look better than trying to do these steps :) i land super nice, but that is from my skating background. how do they expect me to look smooth and pretty at these speeds?!?!?! agreed! slow down! (and glad im not the only one!)
ReplyDeleteHa! Yes! Bunny hopping is totally the image I was looking for. Okay, you have to tell me something... someone in class said skaters don't spot when they turn (I do try to spot, but I get all dizzy anyway). What is the skating secret for not getting woozy? Or do you just power through it?
DeleteI never spotted. I'm terrible, I usually just didn't focus on anything and just powered through, I mean when you spin you are going so fast when you come out of them I felt it was like your brain didn't get all crazy because it was trying to catch up :) where spins in class? Sooooo dizzy! I really need to learn to spot :)
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