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.

YouTube Has Failed Me

I cannot for the life of me find a youtube video that demonstrates waltz steps like the ones I have been struggling with the last three weeks. I can find super pro choreographed performances and I can find people sort of dancy-walking (up, up, plie, up, up, plie) but that is what we were doing in pre-ballet! The closest I can find are these 12 year olds kicking my ass serious style. Also, promenades! We just started promenades this week! They are awesome! Everything is awesome when you are me, I guess.
ALSO: Check this dude out. He is totally doing a pas de bourree. Dudes on the street! You are doing ballet!

You Are Not So Bad Off

brazilian ballet school teaching the blind 

Very cool little video.

I was just thinking about how I hurt right now to the point that I want to call it stupid. Like... I stupid hurt right now. Like it's an emphasizing word*. But now that I've watched that I think I will just pretend I am not as shallow and self centered as I actually am and just say that we finally did more turning pas de bourrée and it was much less awful this time. We also did more of the crazy waltzing and hey, at least it almost made sense. Just almost, though.



*I know it has a name but I asked my husband (who has an English degree) and he was like "I dunno, yo" and if he doesn't know then what hope do I have (I have a stinkin' fashion degree)?

Ballet For Dummies (Meaning Me)

You almost certainly heard about the incident that occurred at a local college campus recently. This is the college where my mother went to school, and where she would take us to feed the ducks or to attend festivals devoted to sustainable living and world peace. Anyhow, so this terrible thing happened. Tonight my ballet teacher appologized for being a little out of it because she had been at the campus all day protesting. I knew I liked her!

In other news, I think my chassés and glissades are getting a bit better. At least when compared to the new and confusing thing we did tonight: waltz steps. Crazy difficult! Mostly because by that point my feet were hurting so bad that trying to hit demi-pointe was tortuous. We did not do pas de bourrée en tournant tonight, which is sort of a shame. I had done really really badly at the turning part last week so I spent some time practicing in my kitchen and living room and I felt sure that I could do at least passably (or, at least better) this time. There is no way I can practice this waltzing jazz, though, because I can't even remember it! You step and you turn and you... do some painful thing with your feet... and then you brush back or maybe forward and you... I have no freaking idea. Oddly enough I really enjoy the moving steps. Pas de bourrée is probably my favorite thing that we are doing right now.

Oh! I did some of those changements tonight! About half of them, though I did a full set earlier in the class, so that has got to count for something.