Friday 13th

"You are not doing well because you're having a good day, you're doing well because you pushed through your bad days!"

Just something my teacher said to me today after class. I was feeling quite sorry for myself, having had two bad classes behind me. You know, the kind where you are just trying to keep up, and even that effort is sucking all the energy out of you. After our first pirouettes, it was a sinking feeling right until the end of pointe class. Though, in my defense, I have barely danced this spring. The past 5 weeks, I've managed a total of five ballet classes, plus three hours of pointe which are on the same days as the three advanced technique class I took. Before yesterday, I had been away for two weeks. Easter and work and working away in Germany, and recovering from not sleeping enough while working. Well, no more of that. I am back, starting with three classes per week, and working myself up from there.

Friday has been my favorite ballet class (90 min adv + 60 min pointe) for the past year, and after being away for too much I might have had my expectations a bit too high.. I was just so excited to be back in class that I had forgotten how hard ballet actually is! You can't just take a break and then jump back in as if nothing. No way. The other thing that threw me off, was that Madame is currently unavailable to teach (she should be back for the fall/winter semester). If you have been reading my blog, you know what an impact she has made on me and my dancing. It's not only about the steps and exercises we get to do. It is something about her way of coaching the best out of everyone. It helps that Madame is very encouraging, gives lots of personal attention (so much to correct and improve!) and never gives up on you. This makes me feel both safe and challenged, and happy. I have to admit that I have many insecurities (I suppose I'm not the only one?), and for this class I would have needed the extra TLC as much as the kick in the derrière!

Well, I did not get the proverbial kick, but an actual slap on the butt for "slacking off" the past month. It was a friendly gesture though, administered by my other main teacher G, who came back from her maternity leave early to step in for Madame. G is quite an energetic teacher, pushy and demanding, but mostly in a good way. 

Now I just have to reacquaint myself with G's way of teaching and style of dancing (quick and springy!). It's like when you haven't seen a friend for a long time, and you need to do some catching up to get back on the same page. I'm also going to put in real work to get my feet back under me! And I'm excited about this summer, when there is not just the one great ballet class to look forward to, but three. And number three is a charm, right? I might yet get my groove back. To conclude with a short recap: I had a bad day. I sucked. I will get over it. And hopefully, I will be stronger for it.

Wishing you all the strength, courage and determination to take the lows with the highs and to keep dancing the roller-coaster that is life. Phew. 

For creating a "word cloud" (above blog post) similar to mine, go to www.wordle.net

Potential

Definition of potential: existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality.

It seems the time has come to sink or swim, or more to the pointe - to pull up or topple over! It has been some eight months since I first went up on pointe, and until now we have always started our class with both hands on the barre. That is until yesterday, when Marie-Pierre (Madame) gave us a shortened version of a regular barre to do - you know, with one hand only for support. Of course, it was a different barre from the one I had done just 90 minutes ago in our advanced class - now we did all our pliés, relevés and balances up on our toes. The first exercise went like this (I´m trying to repeat my teacher´s instructions):

In first, relevé - demi pointe - pointe - plié - plié - demi pointe - down. Relevé - pointe - cambré devant - cambré derriere - demi pointe - down. This in all positions, with port de bras in 2nd to both sides, and in 5th grand port de bras going all the way around. I gotta tell you, bending your body over while up on pointe - no easy feat! But it just kept getting better.. For our next exercise we did degagés: From 5th, degagé piqué - degagé piqué - degagé into plié - from plié into relevé with working foot brushing out (45 degrees) - repeat in all directions. I learned that you have to transfer your weight very quickly onto the supporting foot and pull up like crazy! 

In addition we did rondes de jambes, with the last one rising up again onto full pointe and finishing with a grand ronde de jambe en l'air. Then developpés in all directions, and grand battements - all on pointe. But when Madame told us to finish with arabesque penché, I just thought you gotta be kidding me. Right? You seriously think I should be able-bodied to pull that one off? It is hard enough on demi-pointe, wearing soft slippers! Of course, I could not do it. To have your entire weight on that small platform, the back leg high up and the upper body in deep forward-tilt.. Oh dear. Talk about leaving your comfort zone behind! 

Not quite there yet.. Hey, these girls have both hands on the barre!
Photo: Gene Schiavone

After this first part of our class Madame asked if it really had been so much more difficult than our regular two-hands-on-the-barre. Cue my head nodding, vigorously.  She had apparently thought it would be less strenuous than our usual intense work-out, and come to think of it, true. However, it was still too difficult, at least for me. I really need to get my feet under me first, to find those muscles and turn-out and pull-up. That´s why I like to do even them slow killer relevés! But then came the big surprise: Madame asked us what we had been doing with Gabriella before..

Side-note: Gabriella was our ballet and pointe teacher until last November, when she left to welcome her second child. She is coming back already this summer, which I´m very happy about. And Marie-Pierre will also continue to teach come next fall. How lucky are we?  :)

Which is curious, since Madame had come to observe us in September. But now that I remember, she didn´t stay the entire class (as she had already watched one hour of basic beginners and 90 min of advanced class). Anyway, our class has been a mixed-level from the get-go, but at the barre we had started from pointe zero (pun intended), so that even beginners like me could take part and learn. Although we have been able to progress fairly quickly because either there are those with previous years on pointe or those with many years of ballet experience (for me, 17 years in total).

Anyway, when Madame asked, I told her that we had been doing pointe with Gabriella for only two months! And she said that she seriously did not know this! Sure, I can understand, because of the mixed level and some of the girls/women being already quite advanced.. BUT, it just kills me that for the past half year she has been assuming that I have been doing pointe for much longer! I never said anything because I thought it was obvious that I had not! This does not mean that I am somehow more talented or special. No, it means that she thought my skills were such as they are despite previous training! Which as you know I never did have! Jeez.. All those times when she told me you do not have to do the pirouette (or something else), if you don´t want to... and it´s not that I did not want to, but that I had never done it before. And the time I finally did a double, and the first thing she did was correct the position of my talon.. when I was just thrilled to have dared it in the first place!

Potential : The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.

I mean there is no real damage here, even though Madame might have sometimes given me easier stuff to do instead, and maybe she would have expected less of me. I don´t know. But I have been getting corrections for every exercise we have ever done, and encouragement and positive feedback throughout. I think most other teachers would have raised a pronounced eyebrow at my very apparent lack of skill, and probably reprimanded me at every turn (no pun here). Even worse, they might have deemed me as a hopeless adult wanna-be ballerina with no talent whatsoever. Instead I have been the luckiest girl in class! You see, Madame is a very demanding teacher, but she is also very sweet and caring. She really sees the potential in every dancer, long before you yourself have figured it out.

Picture above post: Australian Ballet, costume for Swan Lake (click here)

Mon Talon Terrible

There it is, back in the infamous spotlight again - my talon terrible, i.e. my terrible heel. To be fair, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this part of my body. It is a perfectly nice heel, moisturized and not a blister in sight. It´s just that the lines of communication from upstairs dance central (that would be the brain) down  to pavement pounding heel-territory are fickle at best. "Present your heel!" "Heel forward!" I do as told, relaying the command to dance central, loud and clear, and usually it works well enough. Right until we start turning pirouettes. Somewhere along the route from cerebellum to tibia to foot the message gets lost. The heel no longer wants to come forward! All of the sudden it is scared by the spotlight.

It is of course a matter of placement and timing. I´m too slow to come into position and start turning before my passé retiré is placed, fully en dehors and at the knee. This does not happen always and every time we do pirouettes, but it is a frequent and bad habit nonetheless. As in really bad.. Yesterday after pointe class I tried to do a preparatory double pirouette (I had already changed into soft shoes) before going into fouetté, but I had absolutely no control. And just my luck, Madame was watching.

Well, actually it is lucky. She of course picked on the position of my heel immediately, and might I add, for the umpteenth time. "Johanna, heel forward! Show me, again. No, more. Better! Again. More!" At this point I´m just standing on flat foot, holding my passé and trying to forward the heel even more, using every muscle I have got. Madame: "You see, you can do it. There is nothing physically wrong with you.  You really have to focus on this. Everything else is already better now!" She is kind but dead serious, and I understand that the time has come to step up, heel forward!

I´m posting this video here for obvious reasons. La Ferri is just so freaking fabulous. In fact I think her über-feet might be the reason behind those ridiculous padded arch enhancers that even Grishko is selling! Now if I could only imprint these forwarded heels onto mine.. :)

Pointe Makes You Stronger!

Yesterday after ballet I tried to do those dreaded fouetté pirouettes again, just me on my own. We did none in class, in fact for the past half year there has hardly been any chance to practice them at all. My current substitute teacher made us fouetté a couple of times this spring, but without any preparatory exercises in the center. So the girls who could turn, did turn. The girls who could not (that would have been me), struggled and failed. "Just fouetté" is not really all that helpful coaching. 

Last fall, I had just managed to work myself up to two fairly neat turns with a nice finish. My teacher gave us lots of good exercises at the barre and in the center. She would tell us/me to go for just one or two fouettés but aim for a clean finish. However, with baby on the way (her, not me!) further practice was delayed. The first time I tried fouetté pirouettes again this spring, absolute disaster. My substitute teacher looked at me like I was half-demented, I guess she expected more? Kind of flattering, for sure, but..

As an adult recreational dancer you do not take the regular route in ballet education. There is rarely a progressive curriculum to follow, such as Canada´s National Ballet School´s Adult Ballet program. I read their class level descriptions (click here), and basic fouetté turns are indeed taught at the highest class level. Usually you can count yourself lucky to find teachers willing to coach, encourage and push you beyond intermediate beginner levels! I´m talking about seriously clean technique, combined with musicality and expression of course. 

I think some, not all, teachers do not see the point in demanding semi-professional class work. I do get it though. Us adults come from very different backgrounds, with various abilities and motivations. But we are united by the desire to dance and to improve in our dancing! Good and observant teachers do recognize the variety of potentials, and push accordingly. I have been very lucky in that aspect. And now I´m on the track of digression, way past my post! I was gonna blog about pointe and that it makes you stronger.. 

So, yesterday I tried those fouettés again, on my own and in spite of all. And guess what.. I could turn! Going round not just once, or twice but eight times! I did a repeat performance of what I had thought a freak accident just a couple of weeks ago. Then I had managed to turn for the entire music, there must have been at least 12 rounds. For me, a huge deal! Which our sub did not even acknowledge (I had already told that I'm a beginner with fouetté turns). I knew they were not clean, so some feedback would have been very much appreciated. It made me really miss my own teacher - she would have screamed me deaf with encouraging praise! After which she would have corrected me and make do them again. Hah! Well, the most important thing for me (ballet-wise) is that I can turn. Everything is not impossible!

But, big BUT, why now? Fouetté pirouettes without practicing? I tell you why - pointe classes with Madame! Mind you, I can barely pull off a semi-clean 1,5 en dehors turn on pointe. But I seriously did not know that learning pointe technique would make me a stronger dancer overall, in soft shoes and on demi-pointe as well. All those relevés, especially the slow killer relevés Madame loves so much (though sometimes she apologizes, with a big grin, about the sh***y, but oh so necessary work she gives us to do). It´s so much harder to hold your turn-out and stretch your knees on pointe. And because you cannot sit in your shoes, you must lift yourself up at all times. Not to mention all that squeezing of inner thigh muscles.. It's ballet boot-camp! But seriously, it's all done in good and encouraging spirit. Makes everyone only want to work that much harder.

So, courtesy of pointe classes and one very discerning teacher I have new-found strength in my feet, calfs, hamstrings, quads, flexors, abductors, abs, butt, back.. My technique has gotten better, including my turn-out and balances. There is still much work to be done, like being snappier with the head spotting. And other stuff which I can't see while turning. But I am turning. And I'm stronger than ever before.

Where is Terpsichore When You Need Her?

Darcey Bussell as Terspichore in Balanchine’s 'Apollo'

Photo by Bill Cooper

After last week´s you-did-well class it was only a matter of time before good times came to an end. It is how my learning curve in ballet works: I make some kind of breakthrough, enjoy the moment, then realize that the bar has just gotten higher, after which there´s the obligatory nothing-getting-better plateau, to be followed by the one-step-forward, two-steps-back, pirouettes crashing and mis-placed placement. Sure, I could put the lingering effects of the snivel on yesterday´s lackluster class performance - but truth be told, I was really just way out of my comfort zone!

Class was a lot more difficult this Friday. The pace was faster and the moves trickier, with the usual demand for absolutely clean technique - combined with some seriously dance-y port de bras. Our teacher gave us a lot of Balanchinean choreography to do, with emphasis on high extensions, speed and elongated lines. You can tell that Madame loves Balanchine´s style, and I sincerely believe that Mr. B himself would have appreciated her talent just as much. She has in fact danced the part of Terpsichore (in the ballet Apollo) and still looks like she could do a repeat-performance on the drop of a hat. 

Old me, on the other hand, hasn´t been visited by any dance-muses of late. Instead I feel the need to join my fellow ballet-blogger Adult Beginner in the Happy Sad Happy Sad  -song:

Happy we have Madame willing to go out of her way to teach a bunch of adult dancers Balanchine.
Sad I´m as far removed from such artistry as is Helsinki from New York.
Happy my arms are learning to "breathe" and elongate.
Sad they still look readier to swim than to swan.
Happy that my neck is long and that my bun looks credible.
Sad you cannot use special effects in class and paste my head onto a legit ballet body instead.
Happy that I have been called a "good girl" - in class - just the same.
Sad that my "girl"days and frothy-pink-tutu dreams are long since gone.
Happy to be a woman in black leggings learning how to dance en pointe.
Sad that my right foot looks sorry on pointe.
Happy that my left foot has been described as "nice" instead.
Happy I can take my talon á la main and stretch that leg up to the height of my head.
Sad it will never be 6 o´clock.
Happy that my heel has been promoted to a body part of importance.
Sad that the same heel does not wish to face forward and welcome the spotlight.
Happy that there is another class tomorrow.

Back to Ballet, and Still Smiling. Sort of..

Back to ballet after the holidays and oh boy.. everything hurts! All major muscle groups hurt, several joints hurt and even my pride hurts, just a little bit. I can´t believe it would be so hard to get back into ballet-shape after a mere 14-days long hiatus.


Maybe the blame is on the freezing cold winter weather, or the strenuous inventory at work, or the one-too-many Christmas chocolate box. Heck, maybe I just spent way too much time couch-potatoing when I really should have been doing ab exercises and relevés! Still, breaks should be good for you, giving muscles and mind a well deserved rest. Right? Why then does this dance-break feel more like an unwelcome interruption? It´s as if I took one step forward before the break, and now I´ve taken two steps back again. But I suppose that´s ballet for you: you think you have it "made", and then you fall flat on your face. 

I have been on this road before, so why would I think I could just pick up where I left? I mean I can handle the achy muscles and sore ankles, that´s just part of the package. What I am having trouble with is losing my pirouettes (they are all over the place, just not "under me"), my jump (ballon to you ballet-French aficionados) and my coordination. A mere month ago I wrote that "my brisés are better than ever". Yesterday, they pretty much sucked. Our teacher (she of the old-school-Vaganova) gave us a basic exercise: three brisés traveling to the front, three to the back, followed by brisé vole, pas de bourré, and then repeat to the left. The first tempo gave me just time enough to send conscious command to my feet, but our teacher thought it was too boring. The quicker tempo was fun, as in me watching others sauté away! LOL. 

Then there was this beautiful but gruesome adagio: Starting from 5th in croisé, grand plie, return then relevé (arms up in 5th/3rd), back leg passé developpé to the front, leg down to tendu efface, plie and cambré forward, nose to knees, then raise with extended leg coming up, turn to seconde en face, then fouetté to 1. arabesque, followed by penché. Promenade in arabesque 3/4 of a full circle, ending in 2.arabesque, pas de bourré.. this is as far as I can remember. I think there might have been two more pirouettes, in attitude and arabesque and a Italian fouetté thrown in just for fun. Now, I do like challenges, but that adagio was at least two streets away from my comfort zone! So I´m still getting my groove back. I know it´s out there, right along with my disappearing pirouettes, my balance and bobby pins, and yet to be bought perfect pointe shoes. 

Tomorrow it´s back to ballet with Madame M-P. The French style that she teaches is a nice change from the Vaganova classes of late. But best of all, Madame´s classes are both strict and demanding, yet at the same time motivating and exhilarating.. I cannot help but being excited. It´s also the first pointe class of the New Year, and no matter how hard and difficult and even  painful it gets, I still want to be there! 




The clip below is from Christiane Vassaurd´s advanced pre-pro ballet class (Paris Opera Ballet school). It is way beyond any level I will ever reach, but a wonderful inspiration nevertheless. It is also an excellent example of the French style, which according to the German voice-over, demands "brilliant technique, clarity, virtuosity, and lots of chic." Whew!