By special request

It snowed a little this evening. Not enough to do anything more than make the grass white and the streets wet, but in this town full of imports from warmer climes, that's all it takes. Thus class tonight wasn't crowded at all. I'd guess 10-12 women and 3 men.

Most of the sequences at the barre I picked up fairly easily, but one just confounded me. It wasn't technically difficult, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the sequence. It's frustrating when that happens.

After class last week, one of the class regulars asked the instructor if we could do the pirouette turn preparation sequence I previously mentioned here. The instructor said ok, and this evening she announced that we'd do it "by special request". I pointed out that the person who requested it wasn't present, which brought a laugh, but I'm happy to say we did it anyway. Here's what we did:

1. Start standing in fifth, right foot front, arms in first.
2. Tendu the right foot to the side, arms to second.
3. Draw the right foot in to fifth in demi-plié, leaving the weight on the left/back foot. Right arm comes to first, left arm remains extended in second.
4. Push off the ground and rise to passé relevé, left foot standing, right foot working. The left arm comes in to first.
5. Lower both feet to fifth, right foot in front.

The key seems to be that the rotation doesn't come from throwing your body around. This just destabilizes an otherwise simple balance. It comes from the working foot (in this example, the right) pushing against the ground before it rises in passé. Bringing in the opposite (left) arm helps, but isn't the primary mover.

We did quarter- and half-turns this evening. As before, my turns to the right were better than to the left, but those to the left weren't terrible. I think I could have done full turns to the right without too much difficulty, as I was stable enough to be holding the passé relevé for a brief but deliberate moment after the turn before returning to fifth.

Color me happy.