Part of the problem with halting the backslide caused by my 10-week hiatus is that I'm not experienced enough to really know what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong before. For example, I'd just started to be able to do single pirouettes with some consistency, and I didn't understand why I'd lost that.
Sunday's class included more pirouette practice: starting in fifth with arms in second, tendu avant with the right leg, demi-plié in fifth and right arm to first, pirouette en dehor landing in fifth again, and repeat. And repeat. Eight times. Then do it all to the other side.
As I regain strength in my calf muscles and flexibility overall, I'm finding it easier to get up on demi-pointe and stay there with my standing leg really straight. And with that, I found myself rotating easily past the point where I was falling over last week. At least while standing on the left leg; my turns on my right leg haven't caught up yet.
I also clued in to why I'm so slow on the allegro combination we've been working on. From fifth it goes: glissade, jeté, glissade, jeté, glissade, jeté, jeté, jeté, glissade, assemblé, glissade, assemblé, and pause two beats. And repeat going the other way. For some reason I haven't been moving from the jeté directly into the following step, and the pause I've introduced throws me off time. I can only assume I've been doing this because that's how it's phrased in my head. I'm still not springy like some of the better students are, but I'm not tripping over my own feet now either.
Sunday's class included more pirouette practice: starting in fifth with arms in second, tendu avant with the right leg, demi-plié in fifth and right arm to first, pirouette en dehor landing in fifth again, and repeat. And repeat. Eight times. Then do it all to the other side.
As I regain strength in my calf muscles and flexibility overall, I'm finding it easier to get up on demi-pointe and stay there with my standing leg really straight. And with that, I found myself rotating easily past the point where I was falling over last week. At least while standing on the left leg; my turns on my right leg haven't caught up yet.
I also clued in to why I'm so slow on the allegro combination we've been working on. From fifth it goes: glissade, jeté, glissade, jeté, glissade, jeté, jeté, jeté, glissade, assemblé, glissade, assemblé, and pause two beats. And repeat going the other way. For some reason I haven't been moving from the jeté directly into the following step, and the pause I've introduced throws me off time. I can only assume I've been doing this because that's how it's phrased in my head. I'm still not springy like some of the better students are, but I'm not tripping over my own feet now either.
(Hopefully not posting this twice, my first comment didn't seem to go through!) Just stopped by to see how you're recovering. Amazing how quickly valve surgeries can make a person feel better. Glad to hear your doing well and are back to ballet! Wanted to let you know, in case you hadn't already heard, that Boston Ballet is going to be performing at the Kennedy Center on June 3-5. You should go check them out if you can! Keep up the great progress!
ReplyDelete