The answer is always "Tour Jeté"

Tonight was the last Adult Repertoire class of this session. I'm exhausted. My feet hurt. And I'm both relieved and sad.

I'm relieved because trying to keep up with all the little sequences is a struggle for me. When I get tired I have trouble remembering such things, and by the time we finish barre I'm already tired. The bits that have made it from my head to my feet (in other words, sequences that naturally seem to flow) I can do at speed, but if I have to think what comes next I get behind and pretty soon I've lost track of what I'm doing. I really thought about not going tonight but I'm glad I did.

I'm sad because it seems the school is planning a complete review of the adult program, and they've said there won't be another adult repertoire class until at least this summer. There are two people who wanted to take this class but because of schedule or injury just couldn't make it. I'd hate to think there might not be another one for them to take.

I really, really, really need to work on my petite allegro. When I first starting taking ballet I remember practicing pas de bourrée over and over until it was second nature. The sequence tombé, pas de bourrée is second nature to me -- no thought required. I need to do the same with glissade, jeté and glissade, assemblé so they just happen without thought. I'm not there and it's holding me back.

Oh... the title of this post? The bit of Coppelia we've learned has a lot of tour jetés in it. In tonight's class someone asked, "What's the next step?" Someone else answered, "It's a tour jeté. The answer is always tour jeté."

That's also the answer to, "Why do my feet hurt so much?"