Thursday, May 18, 2023

Double pirouettes

 Since returning to the ballet studios last summer I've been taking as many as 4 classes a week from three or four different instructors. Each instructor has their own specific thing they seem to focus on: one can spot a bent knee under sweatpants from across the room; another is laser-focused on core alignment, etc. Between them, I get lots of good corrections. Some of them seemingly tiny, but never without good reason.

Mid fall I started to notice a significant improvement in my balance, likely related to how often I'm taking classes now. On rare occasions I found I could sustain passe releve seemingly indefinitely. Then "rarely" became "occasionally", and then more frequently. This paid off in more consistent pirouettes. Although some of my classmates seem to prefer sloppy double pirouettes, I've been concentrating on clean singles (with varying success).

Last week, while marking a centre routine that included a pirouette en dedans, I found myself over-rotating. Just for fun, I decided to see how far around I'd get. To my surprise, I completed a fairly decent double. I'd never even attempted a double pirouette en dedans before, let alone completed one.

Monday, before we started the pirouette combination, I decided to try a double pirouette en dehors. I tried four or five and landed most of them, which really surprised me. After class the instructor commented that she'd noticed them and thought they were a good start. :-)

Of course, Wednesday I had trouble landing clean singles, let alone attempt a double. *sigh*

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