When I first saw my ballet school's fall adult class schedule, I was excited to see that there was an advanced beginner class every weekday at noon, and each class had a different instructor. I had already been taking an advanced beginner class with one of these instructors for several months, and I started thinking about making it a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. For various reasons, some of which I've touched on before, this hasn't happened.
Until now.
While one might think that a given class would be about the same level of difficulty regardless of who is teaching it, in practice I've found this is not true. When I was doing a lot of travel for work, I took classes in several different cities. Although I take "beginner" adult classes in this school, I've found myself quite comfortable in other schools' intermediate classes. Even within this school I've sometimes found wide variation in what constitutes a "beginner" class.
Monday this week I asked some classmates how they felt the Wednesday and Friday classes compared to the class we'd just taken. The consensus was that they were different, as one might expect with different instructors, but not particularly harder or easier. Feeling a bit reassured, I signed up for Wednesday and Friday.
Wednesday's instructor is a new hire at this school. I shared a portable barre with her during a Monday class a few weeks ago. She's a professional dancer and also teaches at another school in the state, and is just brimming with excitement for ballet.
I believe I took a stretch or Pilates workshop with Friday's instructor, but this was the first ballet class I've taken with her. I found her centre exercises today to be more "dancey" than the other classes this week. I suspect her petit allegro will be my nemesis.
It's interesting how different each instructor's classes are. Having taken classes primarily with three instructors for the last few years, I've gotten used to their favorite combinations. For example, each one has their own first barre exercise that rarely varies, and I've gotten used to that. Now I'm learning two new instructors' favorite combinations. It's interesting and challenging.
Some of my 6 or 7 consistent readers may ask, "What about the Sunday Beginner II class?" I'm planning to continue taking that class. While its title suggests it's an easier class than the Advanced Beginner, for me it's just as "hard" but in a different way. This class is slower and the combinations easier than the other classes I'm taking, but that allows me to focus more on how the various steps are executed.
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