No, I'm not Susan

I'm happy to note that my "normal" response to not having specific plans for a Saturday morning now seems to be to go to class. This is a change from earlier this year where I'd happily spend Saturday morning reading the news or a magazine.


And so it was that I arrived at the parking garage near the studio this morning. Traffic going up the levels seemed more congested than usual, the source of which was some idiot who decided to park at the end of a row of cars on level 2 partially blocking the travel lane going up. Why anyone would do this is a mystery to me, as the huge electronic sign clearly reported that although there were no open spaces on levels 1, 2, or 3, there were one hundred forty empty spaces on level 4 and even more on levels 5 and 6. So to avoid driving up two more levels this jerk decided to block traffic. It's not like there aren't 5 separate elevators serving the garage. I hope the car got towed away.

As one of a small number of male adult students at this studio, the front desk folk often remember my name. This can make check-in rather quick. However, Tuesday evening the front desk clerk looked up at me and brightly said "Susan!" Taken off guard I just blinked several times; I've been called many things, but "Susan" is not one of them. Then it occurred to me that she meant she'd guessed I was taking Susan's class, and we both had a laugh. Arriving at the desk this morning I decided to forestall any confusion and immediately offered both my name and the class I was going to take.

Class was quite crowded, with 25 students crammed in. My usual spot was taken so I stood on the other side of the same portable barre. It was a different perspective. It also earned me some different corrections. With arms in high fifth I generally make an oval, partly because that's the way I've always seen it done and partly because I still have some movement restrictions in my shoulders. The instructor seems to prefer a more rectangular position, as indicated by her grabbing my wrist and pulling it straight up. Twice in about 10 minutes. Okay, I get the hint. :-)

There was another guy in the class. He struggled with his pirouettes: his doubles were just fine but his triples just didn't get quite all the way around. I wish I had that kind of trouble. *sigh*

I do have to say, though, that my pirouettes are improving. I tried a double en dehor from fourth Tuesday night and easily made 1.5 turns, and was on balance enough to hop my way around for the remaining half turn. A lot of this seems to be related to stretching my quads and hip flexors during the week -- I spend far too much of my life sitting, and my body really isn't used to this wierd "erect" posture.

Today I gave serious thought about skipping out after barre. I got a nasty spasm in my left quad when we were doing rond de jambe en l'air. I hobbled over to my bag a dug out my massage stick, then rolled the muscle enough that it didn't turn into a screaming cramp. Being stubborn I decided to stay for the rest of class, and managed to participate in everything. Still, I was tired enough that I screwed up a few things simply because I couldn't wrap my head around what we were supposed to be doing, even though those things weren't all that difficult to do.

Oh, and I made an error when dressing for class. Recently I've been wearing thin white crew socks under my black canvas slippers, but none of them were clean. I grabbed some black footies, thinking that'd look good with my black tights, but they don't come up high enough in the back to stay put. The heel ends up under my arch, which is both uncomfortable and makes my shoes loose. It's hard enough dancing ballet without having your shoes come half way off every time you execute a turn. I guess that's why I took them out of my dance bag in the first place! They do look better than the white socks, though, so I'll go hunt down some low black socks.