Saturday, June 14, 2014

Still almost invisible

Ballet San José is experimenting with holding an adult beginner class on Friday evenings, and I managed to go. The same instructor in the same room; the big difference is that I arrived 30 minutes ahead of time so I could stretch before class. I think seven of us showed up, one of whom is a young man who I think said he'd just started a college dance degree.

Again, barre took over an hour. I thought the instructor was going to give us a break on the relevés but I was mistaken. This time, however, rather than trying to hang tough I simply stopped when my legs said so, thus avoiding the later lack of control due to twitching, shaking, and other signs of muscle exhaustion. Aside from that it was a good workout.

With only about 20 minutes left for center work we only did a few exercises. We started with a simple tendu, lift, hold, close to fifth sequence en croix. Then we did a variation of the pirouette preparation exercise, which is something I want to practice on my own, followed by the combination tombé, pas de bourrée, plié in fourth, pirouette en dehor to fifth avant, tendu and repeat across the floor. We then did some simple jumps (changement and echappée) in place, which was followed by a sequence of sauté arabesque with opposite arms, step through, chassé and repeat. Then came reverance and we were done.

I was going to entitle this posting "still invisible", but I did get two comments. One was to raise my arms higher during pirouettes, and the other I've forgotten. I'd guess I'm in the upper 1/3rd of this group. I'm not terribly impressed, but it's an OK place to go so I don't miss a whole week of classes on these trips.

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