Walz of the (wild) flowers

I took my sweet time getting into my second class today staring at the company dancers rehearsing until I walked past my classroom and realized they started ten minutes ago!! Whoops.

That’s what I get for daydreaming! 

Intermediate ballet has been fun and extremely difficult. I’m keeping up better that I expected, except with all the jetés, glissades, piqué, and chaînés turns and combinations. AHHHHHH!!!! For the first time, I didn’t participate towards the end of class because I was embarrassed, flustered and I didn’t even know where to start, nor did I want to hold the entire class back. 

Not to mention, I started doing that THING where I mentally say to myself, “What the hell am I doing here? I can’t keep up. Why am I even dancing?!”…blahblahblah until I realized that I was doing that and shut it down immediately. When I turned around, everyone was staring at me waiting for me to go my turn during center work and my face was hot and turning more crimson by the second and I just shook my head and ended up sitting out.

Oof!

My core is pretty weak but my balance is getting somewhat better???

I got split flats that FIT yesterday…but I’m pretty attached to my full sole ones now.  Oh the challenges.

(Although I love the way split flats looked and felt on my feet at the time, my feet were not even remotely strong enough for them. Please stay in full sole flats if you are a beginner. The leather on the bottom strengthens your beginner feet!) 

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Intermediate ballet.

Quick. Sharp. Intricate. 

Complex combinations and no demonstrations.

I had to laugh a lot because I found myself completely lost in the rapid tangle of turns and chassés. I made a lot of strange faces with my held tilted to the side and my lips pursed together as I tried to repeatedly disassemble the steps quickly in my head. The pianist played briskly and I had to force my jaw to not drop at the sight of everyone else executing triple pirouettes in perfect precision.

Our adage work was focused on développés (groan) :/ and arabesque turns (double groan).

We did our allegro work in a circle with piqué turns, balancés (groan again) and pirouettes, and we practiced spotting at different points of the room. I had such a frustrating time keeping the pace of this and getting the steps in sequence as we all pranced around in a circle.

My teacher stood next to me and watched me dead pan and told me to breathe and stated that I was holding my breath all the time. In addition, I always receive a lot of corrections on having raised shoulders and not relaxed shoulders.

Oh my, I have a lot to work on. But it was such a rush. 

*****

Yesterday, I got to see the costume room at the ballet school and it looked like everything you dreamed of as a little girl: tulle, sparkles, glitter, all packed into a giant perfect white room. I was trying not to overstay my welcome, but I couldn’t help just to be speechless and think of that photo of Karl Lagerfeld staring at the ballerina on pointe in her Chanel tutu. 

Right in front of my face was Balanchine’s Serenade gowns, the periwinkle and waterfall colored gowns and I also caught a glance of the Nutcracker collection… maybe another day, I’ll get to stay longer.

*****

“Class today we have a news station coming to film you.”

“Excuse me?” I stammered, looking into the mirror at my messy bun, smeared eyeliner, and half awake reflection.

I sprinted outside the room and tried to put myself together. I opened my bag looking for god knows what, courage maybe?…and I shut my bag and yelled “Screw it!” and went back inside, and warmed up.

There is this girl who always puts on lotion and red lipstick during class and drinks coffee out of straws. She also brings muscle milk and leaves it in the middle of the floor while we are doing center work!!!  “I know George Balanchine would have a panic attack if we were in his class!” I thought to myself as I stood as far away from her as possible.

The entire class was filmed and I was pretending that a glaring black lens wasn’t being shoved into my peripheral vision at all times. It was terrible trying to concentrate, but it was kind of fun. 

Of course, the girl with the muscle milk and red lipstick stayed after for an interview and I rolled my eyes because I think she does not represent all of us that well.

So lesson for today: You never know what life will throw you. 

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I am tired and slightly broken from ballet. Oof. Dare I say I hit it too hard last week. 5 days almost in a row. My teacher made some comment that I was blowing the rust right off. 

I struggle to straighten my back leg & open up from the hips. 

I am progressing at a painfully slow speed. I’ve been watching more and more videos which are helping me visually understand the body, feet, how to move, and how the body all cohesively moves together like a pendulum of weights acting and reacting. 

I’ve had a full week of ballet; a busy work week plus I worked the boats this weekend, my poor eyes were almost swollen shut. 

I spent some time, for the first time in almost two months, with former co-workers and went to eat Indian food & just to talk about life. I only have one friend who lives here and it felt tranquil to have a night of just being with people and not working, or dancing, or sleeping for work or sleeping for dance.

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I am doing just fine, fine & dandy at my adult ballet classes until………..a fresh faced young classically trained dancer joins our class yesterday. Shit. Then I am automatically jealous of everything. Her epaulemant is perfect, everything and I mean everything is over the top. 

I’m trying to hammer out the forty dégagés that were just asked and my teacher makes a comment about noticing I haven’t been to class as much, but she’s certain I can keep up, as I feel my legs bending and doing all things there are not supposed to do.

*I have been working nights (already of which I am quite burned out) and missing class due to exhaustion.* 

Needless to say, in class I unraveled down to the tiniest size of a babushka doll because this girl was better than me. And by no means, am I good. But I do study and practice in my free time.

But I can’t even begin to compete with this girl.

So I remember something I’ve been working on. Space. Take up more space. So every movement I begin to reach towards the ceiling. Extend all the way out from the spine. There is all this space and as a dancer, I always forget. This keeps me occupied the rest of class. Thank goodness so I wasn’t in my head own head.

Why, as a dancer, are adult dancers given less preference? So what if we didn’t start at five, So what if we are not going to be “stars” on stages at the Royal Ballet by next fall?

There seems to be an entire generation of dancers that have grown up dancing ballet, they can execute all movements and techniques, they have the deepest second positions, the highest archers, the perfect lines…yet….they are the most boring to watch. Why is this a thing?

It reminds me of this quote:  

“Continue to repolish your stiff technique and to ignore a public that hungers for something other than a bag of tricks and the empty-headedness of surface patterns.” 

I used to run into the pianist of my former classes at the local coffee shop. Imagine a school full of perfect SUVS and expensive cars and wild-eyed dance moms all pushing and pushing and pushing. This was my former dance school. He said he was so miserable playing for the school & company dancers that he would start to fall asleep during classes (thus why he was at the coffee shop). 

He said although we were adult dancers, our class was engaging. I laughed because I never thought I WOULD HEAR THAT IN A MILLION YEARS. I do recall laughing a lot in class now that I think of it.

I work & work and with my money, after bills, I come to class. And in class I am alive and in love and filled with joy. Even if I’m sick, broke, lethargic and run down. I show up. So I guess the point of this is to show up and try your best, because there will always be someone there better, some classically trained robot, but maybe they are the push you need to do better.

******

I’m beyond exhausted…to quote my teacher from class tonight, “Dancers, break your toes!” 

on that note, I’m going to bed.

***************

I drag myself out of bed from work last night. 

Get dressed. 

Debate going to see the live stream of the Russian ballet at the Theatre. 

Decide to go to class instead. 

Actually put my hair in a classic ballet bun with a hair net. 

Snag my pre-packed dance bag from last night. 

Get on the bus.

 Head downtown. 

Watch Royal Ballet class videos on the bus on the way to class. 

40 minutes later… walk to the studio. 

Get to class. 

Watch the previous class. 

Change. 

Walk into the studio & realize I just missed my class.  

Almost cry. 

Take a deep breath. 

Head to the coffee shop for an herbal tea. 

My card is charged twenty times on accident because the screen froze. 

I grab my tea & take this opportunity to smile. 

One. Of. Those. Days.

******

“Never stop playing this song, Jeffrey. Play it until you die. It’s just perfect.”

Teacher glances up at our class starting off across the floor. 

“Wait, wait wait. Stop, stop! The dancers are all off!”

——-quote from my ballet teacher

**

I wonder if any romantic energy towards a guy takes away from ballet and my dance life? I told a guy this past week I wasn’t interested because of dance. I meant it…didn’t I? I could hardly believe it when I said it. I’ve always held this belief that when I started investing emotional energy into a guy, I struggled with dance. And in fact, do worse and go to dance less often. I have to be onto something here. Right?

**

“Shimmie!”

(Marches over to me in front of everyone)

“Girl! You haveeeee to shimmmmieeee!”

(my face is bright red & I am dying as I’m being shown appropriate “shimmie technique”)

“There. That’s MUCH better!” 

Quote from my ballet teacher during conditioning class

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If I have to petite allegro one more second….I simply cannot bear it. My teacher spends a good 45 minutes in class on it. (jeté, assemblé, glissade) I have a look in my eye as if I detest it, well frankly, because I do. My grande attitude (or any attitude for that matter) is quite unsightly. I have no idea why this is so challenging unless it’s due to my hips. We then worked on center splits against the wall, also something my anatomy (hips) are not naturally turned out for. I was the only one sticking way out like a splinter.

This girl who is too new to be on pointe WILL NOT stop talking to me the entire class. I just don’t acknowledge her. Why must we talk at all in ballet?

**

My teacher was making us sit in second position with our legs pressed against the wall.

She glances at me. “Hm, this look like you really are enjoying this stretch,” while I am covered in buckets of sweat, my abs and legs tremble under my voice. “I HATE it,” flies out of my mouth and my teacher lets out an entertained laugh and says, “Good. We will stay in this stretch longer.”

**

Beginning ballet today we had a visiting dancer from New York. I prayed she wouldn’t stand next to me at the barre because she was chiseled rail thin and was wearing Calvin Klein. 

We focused on doing most of barre in relevé and also balancé turns. My teacher is relentless and will make us do one exercise several times until the entire class is drenched in sweat and then sometimes she will even say, “Hmmm. I think one more time.” 

I ended up not intimated at all by the New York ballerina and we had an insightful class. My piqué turns are still….”challenging.”

I then went to boxing class where I feel a little intimidated because I am still a beginner. I don’t have the corporate look that every single person in my class encompasses. Then I didn’t have a partner for part of class,  so I just did the exercises on my own. Also, I am a south paw which no one likes to pair with. My coach just watched me out of the corner of his eye and finally put me in a group of 3, which I could tell were less than excited to slow down for a new person. However I didn’t care and when the guy in my group tried to slow down and half ass the steps for me, I ignored him and did the more advanced moves. Out of everyone in class, besides the red haired guy who is an incredible boxer, I was the last man standing for all of our cardio and core work. My teacher stopped me at the end of class and asked me why am I so quiet. I just shrugged my shoulders and said “What is there to talk about?” 

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We are working on the *drumroll* Mazurka step in ballet. It’s hard and involves a waltz-ish timing. I don’t know how I feel about it to be honest. I kind of, well..suck at it. But overall, I think I am getting more confident in class. There is a new girl I have been avoiding on Wednesday nights because she constantly asks questions instead of just being present in class. Like CONSTANTLY asking questions. I think to myself how inappropriate that is. At my old dance studios, they wouldn’t answer questions during class, unless they addressed you first. You were supposed to go home and find the answers on your own and not hold up a class. But studios here are different.

My teacher handed us a slip of paper with famous ballerina names on them and we are supposed to research them and “become them” to quote my teacher.

I was finally asked by my teacher if I was ready to go on pointe after class. It caught me so off guard that I said "No," and my face turned lobster red. The entire class stared at me.

What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I say yes?

I know that's what everyone is waiting to be asked.

I suppose it was the stress of trying to find a job in the big city, not drinking more than 2 glasses of wine a week, balancing boxing AND ballet class, and trying to squeeze tightly a dwindling budget that I guess pointe shoes were the last thing on my mind. I also didn’t feel ready. Like really ready. Like happy with my physical progression and felt my feet were still not strong enough.

******

I tried a different studio that was ballet with a more modern flair. Class was a bit cut short & the combinations strayed a lot from classical ballet. I seem to be the only student who wears traditional attire to class. The teacher was nice, patient and threw in some country music. We stretched a lot more than I’m used to and I was thankful for since the weather is colder. I have been researching point shoes, wondering when I will ever be able to get them. I also thought maybe I’ll never get them. That is a tough thing for me to think about. Maybe I’ll never be strong enough for them.

I have been watching loads of videos and reading dance books. I have taken a huge break from my social life to focus on dance/work. I am also wondering when I can move to intermediate ballet out here. It’s much more difficult in beginning classes in this city. There is a tango workshop I want to attend this fall. I am struggling with dancing with emotion and not just my head, so I thought this would be perfect to learn how to “feel” the music. I’m picking up more shifts to make it work. 

Now, calculating my budget, I’ve taken a break from going to class as much as I want. I’m needing to work more to pay for rent & ballet & groceries & bills. However, I’m bound and determined to do so. Also thinking outside the “box” (pointe shoe reference). I am looking into finally finishing my degree starting next fall. Putting good vibes into the universe that the stars will align.

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