Fish dive, anyone?

I don't know what was going on in the area, but traffic was surprisingly heavy this morning on the way to class. The 5-level parking garage, which usually has plenty of parking on the 3rd level, was full through level 3 and half-full on level four. It was a good sized class as it started and students continued to trickle in for the next ten minutes, all complaining about traffic and parking.

I was lucky to arrive early enough to have about 10 minutes to warm up before class. When I started my calf muscles were very tight as was my right hip flexor, and I was wondering if they would loosen at all. To my surprise they relaxed quite a bit. This made barre easier and, honestly, less painful. I'm not one of those dancers who can fold at the hips and plant my nose on my shins. The last time I bent like that was a trampoline accident in high school, and I couldn't walk for a week.

One of the other students today was my pointe-learning friend, whom I have not seen for three weeks. Apparently she and her family have been vacationing before the start of school. By the time barre was over I'd decided the shirt I was wearing needed a good soaking in white vinegar, and opted to change shirts during the break before centre. This meant giving up my chance for 30 seconds of partner work during the break. Oh well; I think it was the appropriate choice.

One of the reasons I like to go to both of this instructor's classes is that she tends to repeat the centre combinations. At first I thought today's first adagio combination was the same as Tuesday's, but it wasn't and that caught me off guard. Once I started paying attention to it I found it wasn't terribly hard. When we got to jumps I skipped the warm-ups in favor of practicing my petit jetés and glissades. I think this helped a lot with the next exercise, an allegro combination of -- wait for it -- petit jetés, glissades, and assemblés. With the small jumps working better with less thought required I was able to think ahead to what was coming which made things flow better. I think I'm going to continue doing that.

A word about turns... Tuesday my pirouettes en dedans seemed to be working very well, but I found myself over-rotating turning en dehors. As an experiment I let the rotation continue, and I completed several rather sloppy double pirouettes en dehors during centre. I didn't fall out of them and need to work more on spotting, but it was still fun. I didn't try them today as I wasn't feeling as energetic, but I think my turns are improving.

At the end of class I spoke with my pointe-learning friend, intending to say something about how I was sorry we hadn't had a chance to try anything. Instead she spoke about how every time she tried to balance she thought about reaching up to hold my hand, and how it helped stabilize her. Another classmate made a joking comment on how much she must be thinking a lot about me, and I replied, "Great... Now I have a stalker!" Fortunately everyone took that as the joke I intended it to be.

On my way out the door I passed our instructor, and flippantly commented, "Now you just need to teach us the fish dive!" To my surprise she replied, "Oh, okay. It's not that hard." This could be an interesting fall season.