Overheard at the Barre

This morning, while warming up before barre, I overheard an older woman talking to another. Her husband has started cooking, and she was laying into him for not being the best chef ever. The recipe said it would take two hours but it took him FOUR hours because he was being overly careful to remove all the stems from the herbs rather than just removing the biggest ones. The onions he used were too strong and she couldn't taste the milder herbs. On and on she went; he just couldn't do ANYTHING right in the kitchen.

I'm not a violent person, but I really wanted to go over and slap her across the face. Here she has a husband who is learning something new and all she thinks about is how she's "suffering". Was she born with crazy cooking skills, or did she learn it by trying like the rest of us mortals? Would she rather have a husband who flops in his recliner, demands she bring him a beer, and expects a gourmet dinner on the table every evening at 6pm sharp?

It's been two hours since this happened and I'm still furious. I've been trying to cook more at home and I find her comments personally offensive. I don't know if she's sniping at him because she's insecure and views this as an intrusion into her domain, or if she's just a judgmental jerk.

Ballet Techniques review

I've now taken three of the four classes in the four-class "Ballet Techniques" series. It's so much like an intro class that it seems like it should be easy, but it's not. Or maybe I should say this is really basic beginner stuff but I'm still having trouble with it. Of course, that's why I wanted to take this class in the first place.

This posting started out to be a narrative of the first two classes, but it's taken until now to sort out what I wanted to say. I've finished the narratives but switched to more of a commentary (or rant) at the end.

Adult Pointe class is a bust

After avoiding the topic for a few weeks, I asked Susan if she was going to pursue holding an adult pointe class at Joy of Motion this spring. She says that JoM doesn't really want to hold an adult pointe class.

She asked whether I'd had any luck at Md School of Dance. I told her that Kim Parmer didn't want to teach any additional classes, and that Mané wasn't interested in teaching an adult pointe class. I said that they might be willing to host the class if she wanted to teach it, but she didn't jump at the opportunity.

I asked Susan what adult students who wanted to learn pointe ab initio should do. She suggested that anyone in that situation should pick out a beginner-level class and ask the instructor if it'd be okay to take class, or at least barre, wearing pointe shoes. Of course, that's pretty much what people are doing now.

If there is a bright side to this, it's that there is heightened awareness of the interest. You'll still need permission, which you would have needed to do anyway—and let's face it, some people are not physically prepared for pointe work—but you're unlikely to get the death glare for asking. There are at least three or four students in Susan's Beginner II classes at MYB who take barre in pointe shoes, and one or two often do the entire class. There are two in pointe shoes in Mané's Thursday night class at MSD, one who just started. So you wouldn't be the only one. However, both instructors suggest talking to them before investing in pointe shoes.