Semaine 16

I have sadly realized that I can't come up with a quote for each week because I'm not thinking about my blog during my class-- I need to work on that.

Monday night was the usual 6:15 PM Walsh class, and as usual, it was fantastic! We did a LOT of work in that 1 hour and 15 minutes! We practiced combinations with plié-pas de cheval (that horse kicking type of move that begins with a coupe) closing to Fifth en croix - front side back side then without a plié, and also while on relevé all en croix, and battément, dégagé, and frappé combos as usual. Other fun exercises were our pirouette exercises, complete with tendus and correct arms but only 1/4 turns at a time. Corner work was a balance-tombé-pas de bourré-chassé-souté arabesque exercise that we did about 6 times. Kelly wasn't at class today so I couldn't record the corner exercise, not that it's a new one, but I think it's starting to look better. Pirouettes are starting to get better, too. I can do a full pirouette while spotting and not topple over! Yaaaay...

Walsh, at least, came up to me and pushed in my butt/pushed my pelvis front and ribs in... I'm not used to doing that. Butt in? I'm used to my butt hanging out everywhere, so keeping it squished-in requires a conscious effort. =P

My ribbons, elastic, and pointe pillows came in the mail two days ago and I'm excited :) I'm not going to be wreckless with these pointe shoes when they come in (relax!). I'll slowly learn how to break in a shoe and get used to the feel of the pointe shoe itself by practicing tendus, rolling through a demi pointe, watching my turnout in them (since it's bound to be worse) and standing in susu (closed Fifth en pointe) while staring into a mirror practicing to keep my big old butt tucked in! The ONLY thing I'll probably do EN POINTE is stand susu and stand with one leg in attitude/coupé/passé getting used to balancing (while holding onto a ledge). I'm NOT going to try and pirouette my way to unconsciousness on the floor. Demi pointe shoes are $30/pair anyway, so I may as well get used to a real shank. Besides, I'm almost just as excited to practice sewing ribbons and elastic onto my beauty-full gorgeous shoes.

weeeee!!!!!

Tuesday night I went to Kintz-Mejia Ballet School's Adult Beginner ballet class with Vihao. The studio is actually in the same shopping plaza as my (old) LA Boxing gym. It was led by Linda Kintz (pic below). She runs a tight ship, like a ballet bootcamp! It was no-nonsense, no jibber jabber, smiling, laughing, or joking. It wasn't hard per se, just pure isolated exercises with corrections in technique throughout. It was really nice to actually be in such a strict atmosphere. It's not the confusing exercise you get lost in (like at BalletNova), instead, you just focus on your arms, chest, butt, going through your demi pointe and plié when landing jumps, and turnout.

I felt comfortable with class after the first 15 or so minutes not feeling exceedingly behind in technique, and the hour flew by. This sure as hell didn't feel like a Beginning ballet class! I sweated gallons and gallons which was great! My towel was soaked and it felt like I'd jumped into a pool, by the end of class.

The best part of it? After class, Linda introduced herself to me, asked my name and said, "You could get really good!" Wow, so reassuring and SUCH a confidence booster! :) She said she knew I'd done some dance before but wondered what it was and where I was currently taking ballet. It was good to know I didn't look like a complete goof!

I think that after this positive experience, I'm definitely open to returning for class on open days where BalletNova doesn't offer class for me.  Plus, I sweat a lot more at Kintz-Mejia. But, at $25 per drop-in... {{sigh}} my bank account will say *ouch*

Left: Linda Kintz, and Right: Mark Mejia and Linda Kintz

Owners of Kintz-Mejia Ballet School

Semaine 10

Monday Night Class: 

I'm sitting in my bed in the dark with my glasses on, hair wet, and with my laptop open. I am having a Carrie Bradshaw moment here, and it's funny how that's never crossed my mind before. I guess it's because I'm usually sitting on the couch when writing my blog entry.

Anyhow, this week is a Monday/Thursday combo, and tonight I just finished up my first of two classes. So this will REALLY be a two-part blog entry! Irina isn't in town this week or next week (sad) but the substitute instructor is still a good temporary replacement. She was the same instructor from week 1 for Perez, when she was in Argentina (or was it Chile?). Ontop of that, Kelly (my "bunhead buddy" I'll call her) wasn't able to come. I wasn't too nervous about going to class alone this week, which to me, is a sign that I'm feeling a little more confident with my technique and skills to keep up with the rest of class!

Irina Wunder (aka, best teacher ever)

Anyway, tonight's class was pretty easy. Barre work was for the entire first hour (which is more than usual) and centrework for the last 20ish minutes. Barrework was lots of dégagé, battement, coupe envelope (pronounced "on-ve-lope-ay") and  pirouette prep exercises, then barre stretches. Thinking back, it's hard to remember what took the whole hour! Centrework was really simple from my pointe (hehe) of view, which I guess means it was REALLY easy for everyone else! We did quarter, three-quarter, then full pirouette exercises and a soute arabesque combo with these running-leap things... oops, forgot to ask at the end of class what they were called. I guess I'll be asking my coworkers this week!

Oh something interesting - I met a girl in class named Joo. She's 22 years old and has been taking ballet with BalletNova for 1 year now, and before then, was only taking jazz (and at a different studio). She's taking BBFNB like me, and then also taking Advanced Beginning Ballet. She said Advanced Beginning is a pretty hard class, and she's one of the girls who totally keeps up with my class. I asked if she was going to take pointe soon, since she's in Advanced Beginning (the class you are required to take in conjunction with Intro to Pointe) and she said "OH NO!" and she said MAYBE in a year. She said that other girls ask the instructor (Constance) to see if they can begin pointe. So anyway, there's hope right? If she only started taking ballet 1 year ago and with the class I'm taking now, in a year I should be able to ask the instructor if I can progress to pointe. It'd probably help if by the Spring semester I can make it into Advanced Beginning. Hopefully my technique after the next semester (Sept 3-Feb 3) is up to par to advance. Supposedly you're required to take 2 classes per week with pointe (aka, Beginning Ballet for Non-Beginners, Advanced Beginning Ballet + Intro to Pointe). That's big bucks!

Last week I enrolled in Mondays at 6:15 PM with Walsh (BBFNB) and that itself was $329 for 5 months. If I enrolled in a SECOND class ontop of that (hypothetically if this was the POINTE semester), PLUS enrolled in Intro to Pointe, it would be an additional $329 (there's a small discount if you're enrolling in more than 1 class, but I'm not sure what that discount is), plus $100 for the pointe class. So that's $760! Yikes. =/ I guess I should try to work some overtime shifts at work and save up! At least I have time on my side... haha...

I'm getting ahead of myself... let's keep on practicing my turnout for Fifth Position and my simple single pirouette. As if that wasn't already hard enough!

Thursday Night Class: 

Carmen "I get down to business" Perez

Tonight's class was pretty good, a little confusing. Carmen goes through her combinations quickly but the tricky part is that she makes one tweak in the middle of the combo and I forget which direction to resume the normal part of the combo! So she'll do an exercise en croix with four frappes to the front, four to the side, four to the back, then back to the side with single single double-double, then four to the front, four to the side single single double double, then four to the back. Then repeated while on relevé. The combo itself isn't complicated, I think it's just that my short term memory lacks and I just lose my place in the combo forgetting which way to start again.

Centrework was easy, we did some pas de chat-pas de bourré-changement exercises, pirouette exercises, and then cornerwork (across the floor) was this exercise that I so poorly will demonstrate:

I messed it all up at the end with the pas de chat, nervous because the advanced intermediate dancers are trickling into the room and here I am doing a simple routine haha... anyway, the end would've just had a pas de chat executed with the correct foot leading! I need to work on not looking so much like I'm in karate class and be more graceful =/ oops. 

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!