If all goes well, next week I get my second shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Thus the beginning of May will mark the greatest effectiveness. To celebrate I want to do one of the things I've missed most: take a real, in-person, ballet class.
It will have been roughly 15 months since I last stood in a ballet studio, and 10 months since I took a virtual class. As much as I'm looking forward to it, I know that I've gotten really out of shape. Rather than jumping back into even a virtual class I thought I'd start with one of the prerecorded classes my regular studio posted online. I cleared away the debris from around my home barre, set up my laptop to play the video, and tried to remember how this works.
I've often joked that the start of an adult ballet class sounds like someone pouring milk onto Rice Krispies cereal: lots of Snap! Crackle! and Pop! Normally this is a chorus, with many students contributing to the effect. Tonight it was just me but you couldn't tell. My ankles kept my demi-plié very shallow, but the grand plié got snaps from my feet and crackles from my knees. Despite having almost no cambré derrière, I got some incredibly loud pops out of my back and ribs. My chiropractor would be jealous.
By the end of the plié exercise I'd had enough for one night. About the only thing I can really claim to have retained was my balance on demi-pointe, at least on two feet.
Earlier tonight I was ready to book myself into a class; the only reason I didn't was they don't allow sign-ups this far in advance. Now I'm wondering if I'll be ready that soon.
But at least I've taken the first step back.
Hi Reese -- Like you, I have not been back in person to Maryland Youth Ballet since last February and have not taken a virtual class since last May. I am fully vaccinated now but don't know when I will make it back. In the meantimes, I have been following online video classes (Kathryn Morgan, etc.). I miss everyone and being in the studio!
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