Semaine 19

So this week only ended up being Monday night's class by Walsh. Not much to update from class itself, it was the usual. --Balancé-balancé-tombé-pas de bourré-souté-arabesque combo as the corner exercise, developpé exercises center, etc. It was a large class, with about 30 people in attendance.

I want to take advantage of the good running weather while I can, and lately the Clark classes haven't been so stimulating, with only 5 or so students each class. Plus, Hurricane Sandy is headed our way, so I may not have many running days this week if I don't go tonight! Next week I'll only be going to Monday's class as well, since I'm working Tues/Wed/Thurs and then rushing off to Charleston to visit my parents for the Coastal Carolina Fair. I feel like such a ballet slacker, but the way I am looking at it, I have plenty of weeks left before Advanced would start, so it's not so bad. Just two weeks with 1 class/week is OK, right?

But in some ballet-related news, Jeff and I are going to see The Washington Ballet: Dracula at The Kennedy Center on Saturday afternoon! My friend Saki hooked us up with free tickets to the show, so excited!!!!(Thanks, Saki!!!!!)

The part of Lucy Westenra will be played by Maki Onuki, one of the Principal dancers at The Washington Ballet whom Jeff and I watched perform the role of the Sugar Plum Queen in The Nutcracker last Christmas.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Semaine 18

Monday night's class was the most. fun. class. ever!! We had really fun and great barre exercises, a center pirouette exercise along with developpé-pas de bourre tournet exercises, and best of all, we had a ballet dance off at the end of class! It was like a dance off-relay-type thing. The whole class divided into four groups of 6-8 people (yes, class was huge tonight), and each group went to the each corner of the studio. At the start of the music, one person from each group would move in a huge circle doing souté arabesques around and around and around. When that person came back, we traded off with the next person in the group, sort of to see which group finished first. Lots of cheering and clapping, it was just a lot of fun! No video footage. Kelly wasn't at class, plus it's really inappropriate-slash-frowned upon to whip out the iPhone in the middle of class -- which is why all of my videos are post-class. The other centrework exercise we did was

I've been wearing my pointe shoes around the house to break them in, and I'm getting a lot more comfortable standing en pointe and tournet.

They're starting to look a little worn, so they are extra beautiful now :) I'll have to admit, most of the worn-look on my pointes has come from the photo shoot and walking outside in them, hehe... they are pretty nonetheless...

Thursday Night's class was pretty standard, there were only 5 people in attendance so it was a pretty intimate group of adults. I guess Constance Walsh takes the cake for the popularity contest in terms of ballet instruction for adults, since her class was PACKED with people this week.

Anyway, tonight we had some pretty mild run-of-the-mill barre work, but a couple tricky barre exercises that included a developpé/reverse developpé, then degagé exercise that was a bit confusing, pretty fast but easy to catch on after the first round, and a fun temps lié-tendu-flexed foot exercise.

Centerwork consisted of 1/2 pirouette exercises and developpé/passé exercises that really made my thighs burn with long holds! The corner exercise was a super easy routine two-step then grand jeté jumps. It was pretty strange with only 5 of us, because there were very few distractions and quick turnaround for the next person in line! All around, a pretty good week for ballet. I kind of wish that last night's class was a little bit more of a challenge than it was though...

On a sad note, I think I'm catching a cold :(

New Terminology from Week 17 that I forgot:
Temps lié - where there is a transfer of weight from one leg to the next with a plié

Pointe and Shoot

I had a fun little photoshoot for my blog the other day with our wedding photographer (and friend) Sara Liu. She does fantastic work and these photos just captured such adorable doggie moments :) We were trying to incorporate the whole "From nursing clogs to pointe shoes" theme so that I could have a new fun banner for the page.

Thanks Sara!!!
(Visit Sara's photography page LeeLiu Photography to view her beautiful photos and even request her services!)

Adorable Mei-Linh (L) and Kona (R), my little pug supermodels :) 

You can find a barre just about anywhere!

I ADORE this one so much, but I wish Mei-Mei was in the picture too. She was left out of this one :( 

Sara said, "this picture has so much going on!" 

haha... pointe shoes, stethoscope, pug, me in the background in scrubs... <3 <3 <3 it!

awwwww... 

Pugs, nursing, and pointe. What's not to love?! 

Poor Mei looks like she's got seasonal allergies and is about to sneeze

I think this is the one I might end up using for the blog banner. What do you think? 

...or this one, but my pointe is just so bad, so I hesitate posting this one on the banner. 

Semaine 17

Sunday ~  From 11:30 AM-1 PM, I put on my big girl leotard and braved Advanced Beginning Ballet taught by Walsh. Yeah. Seriously. Thank goodness Kelly came with me, because I would've been in tears after this class if I was on my own, because I was stru-guh-ling! As you may recall, I felt this way after walk-in week with Beginning Ballet for Non-Beginners at BalletNova back in June, so I'm optimistic this will get easier after a few classes. Barre work was fun and challenging, but we did ridiculous center and corner work. In 1.5 hours, boy can you smush in a bunch of ballet!

After all of my confusion, I just HAD to record a girl I met in class named Rebecca, who was sweet enough to walk through the {corner} exercises with me after class was over. I'll include the videos only because it'll help me in the future, but ... a warning, these were done in the hallway since yoga was starting in the studio we were in, so she sometimes ran out of space.

1) Glissade-jete-hop... glissade (opposite)-jete-hop.... plie to the front, assemble, repeat.

2) Balance-balance-tombe-pas de bourre-glissade-saut de chat-glissade-saut de chat. (saut de chat was a new term for me, so I was all sorts of lost)

3) tombe-pas de bourre-pirouette (leg back) x 3, soutenu, plie front, pique turn.

Overall, the exercises themselves weren't hard, it was just the first time we'd been exposed to them, and we went really fast... If I recorded Rebecca with all of the centerwork ONTOP of these corner exercises, I'd end up with like, 10 videos from one class. Kelly and I will keep at it and hopefully keep improving!

PS. There was a mean girl in Advanced who Kelly {kindly} asked to scoot down a tad to provide more space for her (this girl was hogging two barres to herself), and this girl sassy-like said "um... NO." --- Did she say "sorry, I can't" or "No. I'm really sorry, I need...." Nope. This girl took up TWO BARRES for herself. Who does that? This was disappointing.

image courtesy of Vihao Pham Photography

Monday ~ 6:15 PM BBFNB class was good and fun! The Sunday Advanced class really helped warm me up for Monday's class, since the exercises in BBFNB were reminiscent of Sunday's class. I spoke with Walsh in between barre and centrework and thanked her for her patience with me in Sunday's Advanced class, to which she responded, "No, you were great!" :) She encouraged me to keep coming to Advanced, telling me that I'll get so much from the class from the repetition in the advanced level.

So, Kelly and I decided (we think) to enroll in the Advanced Beginning Ballet class in the Spring and take BBFNB as our supplement class (or maybe a second Advanced class). If you've been following my blog, you'll remember that I wasn't even planning on the Advanced class until the Summer session!

Good week for ballet!

New Terminology: 
Saut de chat

Beautiful Bloch Serenades

HOORAY HOORAY HOORAY!

My beautimous pointe shoes have arrived!

After watching a few how-to video tutorials on sewing ribbons and elastics onto pointe shoes, I started my sewing of the ribbons at about 9:45 PM and finally finished all my sewing at about 10:20 PM (Megan, I know this does NOT count my sewing of my elastics during your wedding gown appointment...) Here are some photos:

Required supplies for pointe shoe sewing: 

light thread, sparkly happy scissors, a lighter (to singe the ribbon ends), elastics, and ribbons!

Ta-da!!!!! 
All done!

(these are Bloch Serenades with Bloch invisible elastic and Bloch Elastorib ribbons)

I stood up in susu, did a soutenu, and did some tendus and ronde de jambes in them. Obviously they're not the most comfortable of shoes, but in pointe shoe world, my limited perspective leads me to believe these aren't bad! My toes don't feel scrunched, and I felt pretty well-balanced on the platform! 

...now to get a portable barre for home-practice :) 

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 15 (Part Deux)

OK, so Jeff and I made it back from Ohio at 4:40 PM, so I had time to relax with the doggies and then get to ballet class! Vihao came, yay!

So, Thursday night's was @ 7:30 PM usually with Clark, but we had a substitute. It was the most awkward class I've ever been to ever. Ever. While I'm sure the instructor is nice outside the classroom, she didn't come off very friendly. She didn't really smile. Also, her exercises were "meh" alright, not difficult. She had the exercises listed on a piece of paper and there was just an extremely awkward length of time where she spent reading the paper then figuring out how it worked with the music. I dunno, it was just really awkward.  I hate to say it, but it didn't quite feel like it was worth the $16 on my 10-class punch card. While we did do a fun barre exercise where we basically walked down the bar starting in Fifth, tendu front, then lunged (I'm 99% sure there's an official ballet term for this but I couldn't tell ya), then up to passé with the back leg, close front, then again x 4. Then we took the inside (barre side) leg tendu back, then turned the other way and did 4 of the same exercise again. I didn't feel like we did very CHALLENGING barre work, overall. Centrework was better but still not without awkward silence. We had jetes across the floor from the corner, but it was also awkward because she seemed very indecisive of what she wanted us to do... I missed Clark. Looking forward to Monday's class with Walsh (or hey, I'd take Shu-Chen if she were around, she was awesome!)!!

I forced Vihao to take a picture with me since I haven't given my blog readers anything of substance to watch/look at like photos or videos (sorry, corner exercises haven't been very exciting, so I haven't wanted to record), hahaha. Vihao didn't want to record our jetes but that's ok, I was kinda just ready to go home after the class. Anyway, to the right, a fun picture pretending we're pas de deux partners. But in the hallway... oops.

So I met Vihao two years ago through my husband Jeff, since they work together at Microstrategy, Inc. in Tyson's Corner. We've spent some time in Amsterdam on a trip for Microstrategy, at lunches, weddings, and other events, but we never really got to talking about ballet.

Jeff just recently formed an informal P90X workout group at Microstrategy in their gym and Vihao joined Jeff probably about a month ago. So, I found out that Vihao has been taking ballet for 2-3 years at the Kintz-Mejia in Vienna, VA. He got into ballet classes after being hired for a lot of ballet photography sessions at the studio, and has since then been hired out for two-hour sessions with ABT (American Ballet Theater), for Dance Spirit magazine, and personal shoots. He continues classes twice a week at Kintz-Mejia. Now hopefully I've found another ballet buddy :) I think I scared him away from BalletNova though, because the class was so awkward a big adjustment from the comforts of his studio. I hope he comes and tries a Monday class with Walsh, because I love her classes and the live pianist really makes it a lot more exciting.

If you want to see some absolutely gorgeous photos of ballet dancers, check out his Facebook page or his personal website, Vihao Pham Photography.

Some of my favorite photos from Vihao's collections:

I love photos of pointe shoes and the colors here are so vibrant

Dance in the City photoshoot in NYC

I love this picture, dancers in real life settings

just plain pretty!

Beautiful work!

New Terminology from 9/27:

soutenu

tour de reins

PS: Have you noticed the new blog banner? Jeff was working on making on an improvement without my knowing and I love it :) I have such a supportive husband! Thanks, Jeffrey!