Odette/Odile

I wake up and drag myself to ballet school this morning. I always get so nervous before class, that I nearly puke every time I’m here. I suppose I feel nauseous because this is a difficult intermediate class. At this glamorous school, everyone looks exactly the same. It’s so strange. There are kids of all ages smashing their feet into shoes, talking about food and laying in the splits. I step over them trying to find our class. It always smells like feet and old socks here, despite the illusion of a perfectly put together, snobby institution.

My class was so packed that we had to stand close together and I ended up standing next to the best girl in the class * cue my fake enthusiastic smile.*

 We worked a lot on pas de cheval (which has been months since I have done) and tricky developpe/envelope footwork with plies and releves. 

Our teacher was incredible. He knew what to correct, had complex combinations and made ballet FUN which let me tell you, is not easy or common. I laughed at our complicated jumps across the floor, as the next class full of teenage guys, stared at us and made everyone self conscious.

Overall, I am so happy I decided to go and may keep going to this class on the weekends.

*****

So I finally get multiple compliments today in ballet class. What? I am literally speechless. Another advanved student asks me if I’m going to get pointe shoes. Folks, I am on the top of the world. Thennnnnn (are you ready for it?) my ballet teacher asks me after class “where have you been? Didnt you just have a baby?” #micdrop

I kept it real cool, calm and a stone straight face. I didnt cry or call my mom or scream. And I don’t know why she said it, but she JUST did.

I channeled my inner Beyonce and just smiled and on the inside I was like, “these ballet bitches.” I have been working relentlessly hard at ballet and boxing. I know I’m not mid-nineties-Alexander-McQueen-emaciated-modelesque here, but come on! Its 2017. Can we move past this flipping body type thing in ballet?! I swear to George Balanchine, you can never win in ballet class.

*****

My teacher gave me the up and down as I came back into the studio today from a 9 day hiatus. Either I gained weight or lost it, I don’t know which one. She then let me be at the front of the barre to lead the class, which confused me since I had been away. My technique is completely wrong. I am becoming very aware of this.

******

I just finished Intermediate ballet and it was extremely challenging! The combinations were pretty over my head. Class was especially harder than normal due to the children outside of our classroom, pressing their dirty noses to the glass and being so persnickety that all the adults grew self-conscious, and our teacher walked over and slammed the door in their faces. 

I was so overwhelmed most of class with the rapid combinations, but I tried my hardest to keep up. 

***

This one lady was passively mean to me during my second class today because I accidentally ran into her during center. I was traveling relatively fast and she was in front of me and it only took a few seconds to realize she wasn’t moving at all and I stepped on her foot. She yelled “Ouch!” and for the rest of class, she would stop mid-combination and walk off the floor, while giving me the dirtiest look in the world. I apologized, but honestly, she moves too slow, isn’t a huge fan of me to start off with and hates being paired together but with her out of the way, I got the combination right for once. 

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Am I getting better in ballet? Between a ballet basic class and an intermediate class, I struggle to find progression. And I know it adds up to be a lot of money, so is it worth the investment?

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I reeked of a hangover today in ballet (something I hate doing and am ashamed of when I have). I looked utterly lost in class after going to the boat for two months and returning, but I didn’t care what I looked like, and was happy to be back in class. 

I felt a bit annoyed my teacher keeps going with me during center. I mean, I think I know the combination…better than the others, yet she always goes with my group. 

Then for the trickier jete combinations (petite allegro) that I don’t have a clue, she doesn’t go with me. Help! I don’t understand this logic!

*******

Still searching for jobs. Jobs. Jobs. I am excited to get back to ballet. I feel so OUT OF SHAPE from the boat, even though somehow, it’s a laborious job in general. I should feel better, if anything. 

Trying to get reacclimatized to living in a large city and hustling for money. It’s quite difficult to “make it” and “make it happen.” Only the hungry survive.

If you want to make it in this city, pick two of these three things to have: money, your sanity, or less stress. It's impossible to have all three, and if you have less than two, you can't make it here. 

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In ballet today, we talked about homeless people and Sergei Polunin.

E said “we must fly during center, if we are not flying, we are not dancing.” 

We worked gruelingly on Ronde de jambs. My back leg keeps bending no matter how hard I try to engage the muscle above the knee, or maybe it’s my patella ligament. We also did more work on Mazurka’s. 

******

In ballet, this new girl just waltzes in and my teacher wouldn’t stop complimenting her and I swear I have been working my ASS off and my teacher doesn’t say a single thing to me ever! And then, this new girl, gets to go first in our groups across the floor! AHHHH!

I was so upset that I slammed the door as I was leaving. I feel as if I will never progess in ballet and the more classes I take, the harder it is and the worse I get. Is this possible!! (In hindsight, this was all extremely dramatic.)

*******

Today I was so dreadfully tired from work and dance, that I decided I needed a full day of R & R. I simply could not move a muscle (LOL). Working two jobs had made me quite tired. I feel as if before, I was always wanting to work and now I’m exhausted. I believe this is called a Catch 22.

 So I decided that I need to rest and I must watch a ballet documentary while I do so. I watched the one about Tanaquil Le Clercq (Tanny) and it inspired me so much that I got off my butt and decided I must go to class after all, for her. For me. For the world! So much for getting any rest.

***** 

To work on lately:

Epaulment

Arm & head, don’t turn head, slightly incline

Round out elbow,  especially when arms are in en haut/5th or above head

Breathe

Don’t sit in heels

Hold core

Epaulment for plies and grande plies

In cambre back…while in 4th at barre, is it a full release?

Can you advance in ballet as a beginner in a short amount of time…properly WITH the correct technique? 

“Let me tell you something, once you learn everything you need to know about dancing, your body will fail you. So enjoy the journey, not the destination.”  -The Great E

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Things to work on in ballet again:

Fiat, assemble

Assembles

Tour jetes

Flipping wrist over in grande plie when at barre

Splits

Turning out

Sur le cou-de-pied in passe front

Sur le cou-de-pied in a la seconde

Sur le cou-de-pied in back (heal leads!) 

 ****

I just got out of intermediate ballet and I feel as is if…wait for it…I might be getting better.

Improving drastically in musicality and strength. 

Everyday I’m working, I’m losing more and more energy to give towards dance. I normally give myself a pep talk to go to class, after my 8-hour shift, every single day. In class, I struggle to pay attention. I thought working a lot would finally give me more funds and freedom to pursue dance, not the opposite. 

 **** 

I started tango classes again last night. I was so nervous I had to coerce myself to not go home and then had to physically make myself walk there.  I almost then didn’t go in the door. But I did and I had a lot of fun, however, I had forgotten a lot of the basics. Eek! With a more “advanced” beginning group this time around, it was exciting because I knew that meant we would make more progress, faster. YAY!

**** 

Tango. Ballet. Salsa. I had ballet this morning and now I’m waiting for Salsa to start. My left eye won’t stop twitching and my right eye is heavy.

In other news, why is it so difficult for me to execute a sissonne?!

*** 

Ballet and salsa again today. I’m tired but cannot stop because I’m almost done!

**** 

Ballet is harder. Then easier. Then harder. Someone in class made a comment about a ballet they watched and how the ballet was ruined because the main dancer was too distracting due to her “larger” bust and I swear my face was going to set on fire from blushing. I tried not to take it personal but when will this stigma about dance and body types stop?! It’s so old! 

** ** *

Today, I nearly did a double pirouette. It was like 1 ¾. But still! 

I made it to one class at the ballet school I refer to as the bourgeois school, although I was almost too tired from work.  In class, I quickly realized just how tired I was. There were three teenage summer-intensive dancers in our class which made me so nervous because they were literally perfect and engrossed the attention of our teacher for nearly the entire class.  I was flustered during class for our last combination, when my teacher noticed and said “It’s okay, you almost have it. You look soooo much better than the first time you were here.”

I turned a violent crimson and stopped dead in my tracks unaware of the audience that had amassed in the doorway filled with younger guys onlooking with anticipation for our class to be over and a mix of embarrassment/empathy for me. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment?” I said and grabbed my bag and darted out.

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I’m exhausted. No one showed up for ballet yesterday, so my teacher gave me a private lesson (woohoo!) which turned out to be pretty grueling. I have wondered to myself, if am able to adjust to specific technique demands of ballet, and retain them in muscle memory, after all of this time doing the wrong technique. No one has really shown me before, one on one, and one solo class isn’t enough to make it stick.

The most challenging part of dance as an adult is the amount of different technique and styles that are taught and that they all contrast each other. One teacher might teach in one style and the next teacher or substitute will know a totally different one and we learn each style not on a consistent basis, which makes implementing it into muscle memory, that much more difficult.

Another challenge is the lack of time spent on consistent progression of steps. We might work on a more complicated step for maybe a week at best.

For example, grande Rond de jamb arms + legs, or petite battement and also petite battement arms + legs, or more advanced stretching at barre (with penché, etc) and then years go by before a studio brings it up again. Years. And the students are always left trying to remember what we did years ago.