Semaine 3

I got the pointe shoes from eBay... they were SO TINY! The Grishko size chart was way off, saying I was a size 3. I could barely shove my heel into the shoe and it felt like a Chinese Bound-Foot torture device! Ahhh! Returning them on Thursday, sadly. Today I did buy a wrap skirt from eBay, and I'm still waiting on a black one that's being shipped from China (eBay also).

Tonight I had class #3 at WSB. Maggie, our original instructor, was back from her NYC trip. Thank goodness! We did a lot of similar exercises as the first class this Summer, which was good to refine the moves that I know now. These are some videos of things we did tonight:

The video above shows grand battements en croix (front side back side), from fifth like we do in class. Ours just don't look as fluid haha... 

We didn't exactly passé up like this girl does, instead we started in fifth position, did a tendu with a dégagé with arms in second, then go into passé with arms closing, then dégagé arms out in second and tendu then closed. We did this en croix (to side, then back, then side and front). Most of these explanations aren't in detail, they're mainly for me to remember for when I want to work on this later in the weeks... sorry if they're hard to follow!

Dégagé: 

We did these jumping exercises in first, tendu to second, tendu to fifth (changement) and then again in fifth (changement), then we tendu to second, then first, and then finish in first.  

We did these other exercises I couldn't find videos for, where we began in port de bras (one arm up above the head, and the other arm out to the side) while standing in fifth position ecarte (the body is placed diagonally, to the 11 o'clock position). We would tendu (with the right foot) x 4 to the front, then change the arms opposite, then tendu x 4 to the side, change the angle of our head, and then tendu to the back x 4. Then we would do a tendu, then pas de bourre to end up ecarte in fifth with the left foot in front, facing the opposite side we started (1 o'clock position). Then we repeated that. 

To improve my fifth position turnout, she advised these stretches: 

Today, I caught up with Sake via text, and mentioned to her that I will probably end up enrolling in Beginning Ballet (for non-beginners) - an oxymoron- for the Fall, which is different than I mentioned in my first post where I mentioned that I would be taking Ballet II in the Fall. HOWEVER, I think it's probably better that I nail all the moves down in the Summer and Fall and then blow them out of the water when I progress to Ballet II next year. Who knows, maybe things will progress much faster for me than I am expecting, but I don't want to set myself up for failure, either!

Next week June 26th is my LAST class at Washington School of Ballet! BalletNova is also doing a Walk-In Week of preview classes, so I'm going to try to go to one on the 25th (Beginning Ballet for non-beginners), then the 26th is my WSB class, and then Saturday June 30th I can go to a Basic Ballet class (just to get some more ballet time, hopefully this is way too basic for me! I'd hate to go to a BASIC class and for me to be clueless!!)

Terms this Week: (I learned these moves before, I just asked what the terms were)

Changement

Enveloppe 

Developpe

Coupe 

Sous-sus

Here's a cute video I found describing most of the basics of ballet: 

Til next week!