This past week marked the end of my first month, back to ballet classes.  Along the way, I made notes of some lessons and challenges that became clear.  Naturally, I’ve also jotted some of Bob’s reality-check truisms.

January/February:

• The closer your arms are to your body, the easier - but uglier - the full turn.  Arms must stay in an open, wide position.  The balance will come, I’ve been assured.
• Combining fondus with cou-de-pied is awkward at any other pace faster than “very slow.”  Since the foot is only lifted 2-3 inches off the floor, I find this frustrating.
• In a classical arm position, the arm itself has three positions: shoulder to elbow turns in; elbow to wrist turns out; the wrist turns in.
• My left leg can do everything better than my right.
• Shoulders must stay forward while the working leg moves back and the standing leg stays straight.  I can’t imagine a time when this comes easy.
• It’s true, yoga improves balance, flexibility, strength and concentration.
• My plies are improving.   This is because I stopped moving when I was told to stop moving, not when I wanted to stop moving.  The teacher knows more than I do.
• It’s realistic to expect classes where there is a gain in understanding but a loss in physical progression.  Sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.
• You’re rarely standing as straight as you should be.

Bob’s Bon Mots:

“Good my Annie, better!  Oh, but by the way, it wasn’t perfect.”

“May I remind you all that we haven’t joined the local gym, we have joined the National Ballet School.”

“Lift to the air and then pray, pray, pray to the hamstring gods!”

“Yes!  Two hundred percent better!  But we aim for one thousand percent here.”

This entry was posted Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 10:11 am and is filed under Class Notes, Les Bon Mots. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.