Another class, another ache

Last weekend I had a great time Saturday touring the Smithsonian museums with a friend, but that meant that I needed to spend Sunday catching up on chores and other obligations and didn't get to class. Today I was a little later going out the door than I liked, but I did go.

We jokingly say this school is in a slightly different time zone because every class seems to start 5-10 minutes late. Today I was perhaps 3 minutes late and the class was already a quarter way through the first barre exercise. I wasn't the last student, though. One was rapidly stripping off her street clothes in the hallway just outside the door as I ran in and she begged me to stay with her so she wouldn't have to walk in alone, but I declined. And then another student or two arrived after she scurried in.



I was doing just fine at barre until we started doing an exercise that started with a developpé that led into... I don't know what to call it, but it had my leg hanging in space for a long, long time. Ouch. Then grand battement. Repeat en croix. My hip flexors still ache. Then there was the combination that included passé relevé that we held for eight measures. Not eight counts, but eight measures. After the fourth measure standing on my right leg I decided to see if I could let go of the barre and stay balanced, and I could! Woot! I tried the same while standing on my left and I was just a little less stable, but still made it.

For some reason people are scared of the mirror. They start way in the back of the room and refuse to travel toward it even when they're supposed to. Or travel at all, I think. I watched one student doing a combination that was supposed to travel side-to-side as well as forward, and I don't think she ever moved outside a 2 foot by 2 foot area. The first time through the first exercise I was stuck behind a wall of such students; the second time I just went to the front right corner, which was inexplicably empty, and used that area. Much better! In the combination that included pirouettes I found turning en dehor to feel more in control than I ever recall, and I was able to do some spotting without it affecting my control. Turning en dedans is still more of a challenge, but not horribly so.

By the time we got to the allégro section I was feeling pretty tired. I got the combination, but couldn't put much energy into it. The instructor said she thought we'd learned the combination pretty well, but pointedly invited us to actually "get off the ground", meaning jump rather than shuffle. Yes, I'm guilty. I tried more the second time through, but when I'm tired I can either be energetic OR remember the combination and I only managed to parts of each. Oh well, there's always next week.

I did manage to score a couple compliments which made me feel pretty good. I also got called out as an example of exactly what NOT to do at another point (good naturedly, I'll admit), so they kinda balance out.