Jumping into the deep end

In the last calendar week (Sunday to today, Saturday), I've taken five ballet classes. This is something of a record for me. I don't know that this will be a regular thing, but expanding my repertoire to include MYB's "Advanced Beginner" classes and being able to take classes during the day means I can find a class any day.

One of the issues I have with ballet class nomenclature is that there is very little consistency. I take MYB's adult beginner level classes, but elsewhere I often feel comfortable in adult intermediate classes. It's pretty common to find retired professionals in MYB's adult intermediate and advanced classes, mixing with the most experienced true amateurs.

Even within a school, different instructors interpret the same class description differently. I've jokingly referred to Susan's Beginner 2 classes as "2¾" because they're much closer to the Advanced Beginner classes than they are the Beginner 1. The biggest difference between the two is that there is less demonstration and more flat-out dancing.

Although I took some Advanced Beginner in 2013, since then I've been taking a mix of Beginner 2 classes. A few weeks ago I looked at the schedule and decided that if I was going to take more classes I was going to have to take some Advanced Beginner classes. I asked Laurice, the instructor who teaches most of them, which was the easiest of the ones she taught. She suggested the Wednesday noon class, which I've taken a couple of times. The barre is a bit faster, and the combinations she gives aren't familiar, but it's nothing terribly challenging. The centre work is a bit more challenging, and this Wednesday I skipped only the grand allegro at the very end of class. By that point I was too tired to wrap my head around the combination, even though none of the steps were unfamiliar.

This morning I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, and with nothing else planned (and the weather turning stormy) I decided to take Laurice's class this morning. I got the idea I might have jumped into the deep end when several of the women put on their pointe shoes and the men dropped into 180° splits. Remember what I was saying about nomenclature? 

I did pretty well during barre. I screwed up a couple of the sequences, but that's nothing unusual when I'm doing something new. Centre went about the same way, and noting that it was already 11:15 I didn't hold back during the adagio and petit allegro combinations. Then I remembered that the class didn't end at 11:30, but at 11:45. Ugh.

I guess this could be considered a beginner class because none of the steps were anything I haven't done before; an optional brisé in the grand allegro was the most advanced. I did pretty well with the petit allegro, but with no energy saved for grand allegro I couldn't absorb the the sequence. Instead, I plastered myself against the back wall and watched. It's a bit intimidating to be in a class with students of this level, but I don't feel totally lost.

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There's a dancewear store across the street from the school where I take classes. I like this place, but their menswear section is understandably small. I mostly wear athletic-style leggings and T-shirts, but quilted dance belts are a specialty item. The store's website showed the downtown shop didn't have any dance belts in my size in stock, but their other store might have one made by Wear Moi. The salesman who helped me hand-checked their stock to verify that they didn't have one on site, then called the other store and had them hand-check their stock too. To my surprise, the other store had both a Wear Moi and a Capezio N5930 in my size.

To save myself the 50-mile round-trip, I asked if they could transfer it to the downtown store. They readily agreed, saying I should expect a call when it arrived Monday morning. As I walked to my car after class today I checked my phone and found a message from the dancewear shop saying they had my dance belts. I immediately changed direction, walked to the shop and bought both of them. This means that I can go to four or five classes a week and not have to do laundry twice a week.