Fashion and Ballet: Together As Always

Ballet-inspired fashion is nothing new, they've been doing it since fashion inspired ballet (which was always. Hello, turnout so you can see my expensive shoes!) but this one impressed me mostly because it appears to have actual dancers in it:

All I can say is "chaînés turns on carpet, man." That's hardcore. I assume that shiny satin shoes makes such a thing possible. If I tried that in canvas I'd probably break my foot.

Who needs feet, anyway? Not me.

You learn something new every day. For example last week I learned that trying to do chaînés turns  in your jammies is a great way to have your glasses fly off your face and possibly to step on them at the same time.

Tonight in class we were doing a new turn across the floor: attitude turns. And I guess my foot decided to cop an attitude (har har, see what I did there? I kill me. Okay, no. Sorry. Never mind.) because I suddenly felt something go "POP!" and for the rest of class it felt remarkably like I was being stabbed in the foot. The internet tells me it was probably a ... something something digital something tendon. Annnnnnd... great. Another foot injury. Hrmph! I swear, if it isn't one thing it's another.
It still hurts, though not as badly. I am trying to go easy on it tonight, anyway. I am telling myself that it was probably brought on by all of the intense driving I did over the past few days (Easter visit to my dad's place in the hills) regardless of the fact that the trouble is quite clearly in my LEFT foot.
No, no! It's driving that did it! It's driving that is terrible for me!

Also: tonight for center practice we did a little piece of choreography from Raymonda. We looked just like this, only not even at all:

It's All Good, I've Watched the 11 Year Olds Do It So I've Got it Down

So the other night in my level three class (after an exhausting adagio and break-neck marathon pirouette session) the teacher lined us up in the corner and told us to (in groups of two) turn across the floor in whatever way we chose. Now, the only turns I've really been around for are chaînés and pirouettes. And I hate chaînés. But I was ALL OUT of pirouettes for the night. So, after a brief moment (which was all I had) of contemplation I thought to myself "screw this for a lark" and did piqué turns across the floor. Now, you may or may not recall this, but I have NEVER done piqué turns in class, before. I did preparation for piqué turns once... and I sort of popped a couple off in my kitchen the next day, but I have had no actual experience doing them. Not even in slippers. Only a couple of times in baseball socks (my dance footwear of choice, of course)
BUT I DID IT.
And it wasn't beauteous. And it wasn't technically proficient. I didn't even know which direction I was supposed to be turning in when moving from stage right to stage left... And maybe the teacher sort of looked at me like I was insane and maybe even declared that next time we would be working on piqué turns as a class...
BUT I DID IT ANYWAY.

Hippo Birdy Two Ewes

I turned 29 years and 24 months old today. Yay? I held off on posting this because I had plans to make pink cupcakes with pink frosting and a pink candle and eat one while wearing a pink frilly thing but my cupcakes turned out ... well... horrible. My ballerina dreams were dashed on the rocks of artificial strawberry flavoring and being too lazy to use a piping bag with a star tip. So, you don't get to see them regardless of how pink they are, sorry!

Anyway.

I feel like I am starting to get the hang of this double frappé business. I'm not saying I'm whipping them out like it ain't no thang. It's a thang. Trust me. And they are still kind of confused. But, at least I am not totally randomly flailing around for the entire combination. Small steps. Small steps.
Head lines are confusing me to death, though. I KNOW which way I should be looking while my foot is in a particular position... I just can't actually hook those things up together, yet. At least not in rapid progression. Left, front, right, front... bam bam bam. Forget it!
Other things to work on: not tipping over during chaînés turns, not deflating halfway through adagio, not getting migraines after every single class.

Big Week

Last week felt like a big week for me.
Thursday I had my long-awaited and much-anticipated appointment with my doctor. I explained what the situation was with my knees and while the whole thing is basically tied in to the rheumatism (everything is tied in to the rheumatism, including the stupid little skin rash I have developed) he thinks it looks like something called Patello-Femoral Syndrome (PFS). It basically means that I have to keep taking anti-inflammatory drugs (which I couldn't get through a day without, anyway) and start going back to a physical therapist to try to get my leg muscles even stronger to stabilize the connective tissues in my knees. I always forget why I like my doctor, so a visit every year is important just so I don't go on a rampage and kill everyone at Kaiser. My doctor has a very good bedside manner (and if you know Kaiser then you know how rare that can be) and is always willing to take longer than the allotted ten minutes to talk to me. He might not always hit the nail on the head, but at this point I think he's the best I am going to do while using this HMO. We looked at my x-rays (from way back in November) together so I could actually see what was going on in there structurally. The bones look good, still smooth and round in the places they need to be smooth and round. Connective tissues do not show up on x-rays so the rest of it is kind of conjecture. Looking at the symptoms, though, the diagnoses is at least closer to the mark than anything else we've tried in the past ten months.
Anyway, the good news is that (as of November) there didn't seem to be a leap toward degeneration in the joint. Only time will tell, but there it is. I can deal with pain. What I can't deal with is fusing in to a solid lump that cannot move at all anymore. They will undoubtedly tell me not to do a lot of jumps in ballet class. But I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Friday's class was terribly small. There were only four of us for barre, and then just three for center work! It felt very strange. The Friday class is usually packed beyond capacity so I am not sure what was going on there. Summer vacations? Because we were so low on students the class was extremely intense and exhausting. We did grands jetés, which was fun and new, and I think I may be getting very slightly better at chaînés turns, though they are still sort of hit and miss. I asked about class schedules and my teacher thinks I should try out the level 3-5 class (because I can't make it to the regular level 3 class until September) and see what I think. I may give it a shot, but probably not until late in July. Until then I am totally happy where I am and still feel challenged enough not to be bored.

ONE HUNDRED POSTS, BITCHES!

100th post! Woooooo!
Not a lot to say, though, I'm afraid.
The last week or so has been really difficult. My cat was diagnosed with a chronic illness. My husband started a new job while also suffering from an endless migraine. My rheumatism flared up so bad I just wanted to sleep through it but couldn't lay down for very long. I was PMSing, which makes it even better. I got a zillion custom orders all at once (which is nice, don't get me wrong. Those vet bills ain't payin' themselves) so I am working and sewing and attempting to communicate with people all over the country while keeping them all separate (my brain is not an organized place).
My hips are going out. They have been for a while, but I have been trying so hard to ignore it. This weekend was the first time they had been so bad that they were my main focus, though.
So, basically, everything is super crappy all around.
But I am going to class in spite of everything. Next week I am going to take an extra class. The harder one. I am a little nervous about it! My other option is to take the class immediately afterward, which is basically pre-beginning. I suppose it couldn't do me any harm to take it. Or maybe I could just do barre of the harder class? Does it really matter? This Monday we were doing those ridiculously hard chaînés turns again. Even when I try to spot I just get dizzy and need a sit-down. I will get them eventually but until then I look super dorky out there.
Sigh. Chaînés turns. You are not my BFF.

No, Your Other Right Leg

That was what my teacher had to tell me at one point tonight.
Sigh.

So, I took a different class tonight than I usually do. One that is just a liiiiiiittle bit more advanced than mine. Like, six months and I will have this stuff down, but right now not so much. This was my first experience at attempting chaînés turns at any tempo other than painfully slow. There has got to be an in-between stage, though, because if I try to do them fast I just whirl away like an out of control ground flower on the 4th of July.

Barre was good. Solid. And then there were combinations in which we had to insert pas de bourrée in the middle of doing a bunch of other stuff. And do port de bras while also trying to remember which foot is supposed to be doing something. Anyway, that was interesting. Challenging. I am going to seize "challenging" instead of saying "oh mercy me, but it was so terribly difficult and I was all aflutter. Now, I must go lay down, as I think I have the vapors".
Or. You know. Something. I think that one got away from me.

Also, still struggling with assemblé. I am not getting better at it. Because I HATE IT. And so I don't practice it. See, I finally feel like I have gotten the hang of turning pas de bourrée, and I even feel confident about not tripping over myself too much during waltz steps. But, I practiced those. Because they are fun! And they look interesting! And they don't suck! Not like assemblé. Because assemblé is dumb and poopy and smells like pee.
That's right, assemblé. You suck.
Assemblé can't come to my birthday party, and that's that.
NOBODY LIKES YOU, ASSEMBLÉ.

Shake It Like A Polaroid Picture

So in class today I learned that my impressions of last week, that the Zoloft was making me shaky, were correct and have not improved. It's not so bad when I can keep a death grip on the barre, but even balancing on flat on one foot is difficult in the center. So I looked at the information pamphlet that came with the bottle when I got home. It says "contact your doctor immediately if you experience any of these unlikey but serious side effects: easy bruising/bleeding, decreased interest in sex, decrease in sexual ability, muscle cramps/weakness, shaking or tremor"
So. I got to send my doctor yet another email when I got home tonight. It's a real pity, because this stuff really is making my brain feel better, and really does seem to be smacking down the pain a little, too. But, I will probably end up on something else yet again.
*sigh*

In other news:
We started spotting tonight. Which is good, we really need to learn that. We get all loopy and stumble around after chaînés turns. There are newly taped-up pieces of brightly colored paper on the walls so that we can focus on something easy.
I felt really terrible at our ever-present glissades. I mean, worse than usual. Must be the shakiness.
I stood next to a person at the barre who was AWESOME, though. I haven't seen her before, so maybe she was just visiting from the more advanced classes, but she really was amazing, and following her was a pleasure. Probably made me look ridiculous in comparison, but MEH.