Six Classes Into the New Year

Corks were popped, and the last of the ballet-pink cava drunk a week ago. Darlings, it's time to skip, hop and jeté back to the barre! Which is what I finally did this past week. I had missed those classes so badly! Don't get me wrong, I revere holidays and enjoy R&R as much as the next person - but I prefer to dance first, chill after. Ballet class is my favorite past time, and to have all that time off to lazy around, but no class to go to? It ain't right.

You know what my dream vacation would look like? All dance, with trips to the beach in between. To mix it up a bit, a week or two in Paris or NYC or London - local ballet classes and performances included of course. And to top it all off, a summer dance intensive for adults. A girl can dream, right? Although - if you leave out the trips to glamorous cities, the dance intensive and the beach, it's pretty much where I'm right now. I'm taking a 3-month long sabbatical, studying and looking into possible new career prospects. The icing on the cake: lots of time to dance! It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

This means that beginning of next week I have a new ballet class schedule, with the additional option of taking morning classes. I'm also thinking about renting studio space at our school, us students are getting a really good deal at 10€ / hr. Might get some friends with flexible time-tables together and do class on our own. A simple barre for warm-up, then practice pirouettes or allegro or whatever else needs working on (which is pretty much everything).

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Ballet intermediate	Ballet advanced	Rest or:	Ballet adv. beg. - int	Ballet advanced	Optional
Ballet adv. beginner	Pointe adv. beginner	Lyrical jazz	Pointe beginner	Pointe int. beginner	Ballet int.

There is also a short variation from Bournonville's ballet Napoli that I want to study and learn! Pointe-wise it's technically not impossible, but the big challenge is in the tempo and the épaulement. Royal Danish Ballet's Lis Jeppesen does a wonderful interpretation, the best I've seen: musical, lively, spirited and lovely. Whatever I can learn from this will be worth it, I'm sure.

How about you? Have you ever tried to learn a variation on your own? How did you do?

As for those six classes into the New Year.. The first one was wobbly and wonky. Pirouettes were off balance and turn-out was last seen in 2011. Hate when that happens. The next day I was almost back in form, and class was beyond awesome. We got to do modern ballet choreography in pointe class, with elements from Forsythe and Bejart and from our own fabulous teacher Marie-Pierre. It's something I've never done in ballet before, and totally exhilerating! Oh, and the music is awesome too, it's from Forsythe's In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated.

By the third day, my muscles were complaining, which was to be expected. Took a day off and then headed to a beginner's class. It was almost harder than my usual class! Exercises were slow enough to think about every correction I've ever received, and dance as clean as possible. I might have tried too hard, as my teacher had to remind me twice not to tense up! But it was good to slow down and get back to the bare basics.

My sixth class of the week ended with one perfect pirouette. From fourth, en dehors, turn, turn, into a neat fifth position. Balanced and controlled. Afer one week of almost there, it was so sweet. I'm ready for 2012, bring it on!