I’m sure my two readers probably have this figured out right now, but I am total FAIL at posting when it comes to continuous events. Because the Ballet Intensive wrapped two weeks ago, I’ll have to do a little summary. Maybe when I’m done I can finish my Seattle posts…

Day 5

Day 5 of the Ballet Intensive kicked off with a half-hour of Pilates with Yuki. I would have thought that it wouldn’t be enough time to make my body hurt, but apparently it was. Since we had learned the basics the week before, she wasted no time diving right in to the stuff that, you know, you have to use muscles for and stuff.

Pilates was followed by the standard 90 minutes of ballet. We had Kari again. I ended up getting a nasty case of shin splints. I did a bit of reading on the interwebs, and I think it was lack of proper warm up that did me in. Some of the instructors used our time at the bar to actually warm us up, while others… didn’t.

After, we had modern with Lauren. Tiny little thing, about my height, real cute like. She made some comment about how short dancers are good at traveling across the floor because we are expected to move just as fast as those long legged people. Inside I was like “fuck yeah!” The class was interesting, but I felt like we did more time doing warm-up type moves instead of actually dancing. And after two hours of class, warm-ups really aren’t all that necessary any more. I mean, my body was already loosey goosey, it was a little too late for my shins, kwim?

What I liked about Lauren was that she took time to explain things, show them again if necessary, and let us mark to the music before attempting it full out. She would also give us helpful tips. At one point, I asked her if she’d explain something because I just wasn’t getting it. She made some comment along the lines of how she wasn’t going to turn on the music and send us out there clueless. Oh, my dear Lauren, you would be surprised.

Day 7

Wait, wut? Where’s Day 6? You must have missed it. Scroll up and look again.

After barely being able to walk, let alone jump around, I decided to stay home on Tuesday. I missed ballet with Laura (the modern instructor from the previous week), who was apparently pretty good, classical jazz with Colleen, and yoga, which was apparently a lot of work. I didn’t feel too bad about missing it. One, because, like I stated earlier, I could barely walk. And two, I like my yoga workouts to be relaxing and stretchy. Very non-workoutish. The funny part is that what I felt most guilty about was letting BRK down. Especially after she left this comment:

I like intense ballerina Jill. She doesn’t drop like a fly on day 4 like some of the other less intense ballerinas.

Day 7 had the same schedule and instructors as Day 5, and my body suffered from much of the same results. I don’t understand. I seemed to adjust to everything just fine on the first week, then during the second week it was like my body had never danced before. I took it easy on the jumping during ballet, and by the time modern rolled around, I had to sit for about 10 minutes. I toughed it out near the end, though. Also, I was missing my partner in crime, Susie. You see, the thing about me and Susie? We went to DOB in the ’90s. We tap. Ballet and all this écarté and retiré and assemblé business… well, you’d think they were speaking a foreign language or something. Typically Susie and I just gave each other terrified looks and then watch others do it and try to fumble through, but without her, I was no longer in the quarter of the class that was slow to catch on. No. I was that person. The one who’s like “nope, didn’t get that,” “can you say that again?” “one more time,” “um, what is that exactly?” It got to the point where Kari would tell us what to do, then turn and look at me for approval to go on. At least she was starting to learn. It’s like, I didn’t want to hold the class up, but I didn’t want to stand there and hop around like an idiot because I honestly had no idea what was going on. And I’m sure this all makes me sound like a horrible dancer, but I’m really not. I know what a lot of basic moves, I just don’t know/remember what they’re called. And everything in dance is just building on the basics. And to be fair to myself, everyone in the class had that clueless moment at one time or another.

Day 8

I kind of whimped out on Day 8 of the Intensive. My body felt about as crappy as it did on Tuesday, but I didn’t want to miss the last day. The first 90 minutes was ballet with Lauren. Like Yuki, she wanted us to use our arms and head while at the barre. I don’t know, I’m really not coordinated enough to think of my feet and my head and arms in a ballet environment. But she looked pretty good doing it.

I modified all the exercises that included any sort of jumping. At one point I did a lot of relevés. Ouch my calvies. Susie whimped out with me. But I’m not sure if her I’m-pregnant-and-the-baby-is-bouncing excuse holds up. ;)

I went all out at the end when we were doing leaps (yeah they have a proper ballet name, but I’m sick of looking up proper spelling at this point). And by all out, I mean I did like 3 in a row. I was awesome.

Unfortunately I was not awesome enough to stay for classical jazz and yoga. I was pretty limpy by the time ballet was over. So I hobbled out to my car, went home, and propped ice pads on my shins.

Overall I really enjoyed the Ballet Intensive and am glad I did it. My only complaints were about specific instructors and the additional styles of dance. It was nice to try something new, but I would have liked to maybe try 6 or 8 new things instead of just two. Or limit to 30 minutes instead of an hour and skip the additional warm-up. If they did a two hour class with 90 minutes of ballet and 30 minutes of something like yoga, Pilates, or strength, it would be perfect for me.

The final day of the Ballet Intensive this week was a lot of work.

We began the class with 30 minutes of strength training with Katherine. She had us do a lot of core and leg exercises that were reminiscent of yoga and Pilates. I found it to be quite tiring and all around stretchy.

After, we had Ballet Technique with Luke. His style was a lot like Kari’s as far as throwing complicated stuff at us where I had no idea what he was talking about, but at least he took the time to explain things as much as we (I) needed before turning on the music and letting us (me) flail around. I don’t blame my flailing on lack of mad skillz, though; I blame it on my concentration. How can anyone expect me to pay attention to what I’m supposed to be doing while in the presence of such a stunning danseur?

Lots of things I did were laughable, but I didn’t seem to mind. My spirits were much higher than they were on Tuesday. Probably because I got my pirouettes back. I even did a few doubles to the left! Katherine stayed for the class with us and did the majority of it en pointe. *jealous sigh*

There were only six of us who managed to make it to class. We were supposed to have an hour of Classical Jazz after ballet, but we decided to cancel it because some of us had to leave and we didn’t want to do the class with only a few people, or so the story goes. We are hoping to be able to do some sort of stretching class in lieu of the jazz next week.

Day 3 of the Ballet Intensive completely restored my faith in myself.

We started out with an hour of Pilates with Yuki. I had never done pilates before. Some of the exercises were easy and some made my already sore muscles work harder. But really, I can’t complain about anything I can do while lying down.

The hour passed quickly, and then Yuki dropped the bomb on us. Laura, who was supposed to teach a half hour of Modern at the end of class, was sick, and the remaining two hours of class would be all Ballet Technique. This sent me into panic mode. Two hours? Surely I misheard. I didn’t think I could handle two full hours of the torture that occured the day before. My body, ego, and sanity could not handle a repeat. I crossed my fingers that the instructor was not . . . like last night’s.

As it turned out, Yuki stayed with us the entire night which suited me just find. She was nice, funny, and gave great advice much like Ross. Her barre exercises weren’t painful and torturous. She kept the moves basic but used them in combinations that made me think. She threw in some head movements as well, but I struggled enough remembering what my legs and arms are supposed to be doing, so I just glossed over that. The breathing and muscle control excersizes that we learned during pilates proved to be very helpful with my balance as well.

Yuki was very good about taking the time to make sure we all understood what to do, as well as giving us a few chances to mark it which I greatly appreciated, especially once we moved to the floor. The floor combinations were a lot of fun. She had us do them alone, in pairs (you have to know how to dance with someone else!), and even had us in groups criss-crossing across the floor. We did a turn combination as well, and I mostly redeemed myself from the last class. I was a little wobbly still, but even when I lost my balance I was still able to end beautifully like nothing had happened.

This two hour technique class was probably my favorite of everything so far. It was exactly what I was looking for in a program like this. I got to try something new, learn a few tricks that made me better, and have fun.

For as immobile as I was throughout the day, I’m really surprised how much my body loosened up by the end of class. I could have easily gone another half hour. (Not that I necessarily wanted to, I’m just saying my body was up for it.) Also, I now have first hand experience of what a difference the floor can make. I’ve spent 9 hours this week (mostly) on my feet, and other than a little stiffness or cramping here and there, I haven’t had any lasting pain in my heels or my bad toe. I guess that’s what you get when you dancy on marley instead of tile.

I definitely entered day two of the Ballet Intensive with a false sense of security. I felt pretty good throughout the day, but somewhere between leaving work for my hair appointment and getting out of the salon chair, my body decided it was going to tell me to go fuck myself.

I thought the 90 minutes of Ballet Technique with Kari at the beginning of the class would be similar to Monday, where we worked on proper technique, but no. It involved doing a bunch of ridiculous stuff that even my 16-year-old self would have sucked at. Top that with not having done it for years, being sore from the three hours dancing yesterday, and being out of shape in general . . .I think you see where I’m going here. We were also supposed to do a bunch of stuff in relevé (ha ha ha ha!), but my ankles were being all twingy. And for those of you who know about my history with ankle injuries . . .

We spent a considerable amount of time actually dancing compared to yesterday. As I said yesterday, a ballerina I am not, nor have I ever been. I was getting very frustrated because evertime the instructor gave us a combo, she would use ballet terms and mark it, and then tell us to do it across the floor, sometimes one person at a time. Okay, no. That doesn’t work for me. First of all, I had no idea what she even said. Second of all, every move she marked looked exactly the same. So I got to be the one who was like, “Can you show us that again?” every single time.

Now, I have no problem sucking at something new or something I was never good at to begin with; however, it is quite a strike against the ego to bomb something—multiple times if I may add—that I normally do quite well.

Pirouettes.

I usually have no problem doing a double pirouette. I can do a solid triple about 63% of the time. But my legs were so jellified from the night before and the time spent at the barre that I couldn’t even do a single. I couldn’t even fake it because nothing on my body was working. I couldn’t straighten my leg. I couldn’t get into full relevé . Core? What core? I suppose my neck was feeling all right, but I have to actually rotate before I can spot. And it didn’t help that all the turns were in the middle of some funky combination that had my brain all preoccupied and my feet all confused. It probably sounds like I’m whiny and making excused right now, but I can’t remember the last time I was that frustrated with myself. It took everything I had not to walk out, get in my car, and leave. Oh, and not to cry, because I really, really wanted to.

Next up was an hour of Classical Jazz with Colleen. At first I thought it would be Broadwayish, and when she said it would be more old school, I assumed it would be 70sish. I don’t know how to explain it, but the music was very jazzy, saxaphone, piano based (think Pink Panther). It was definitely interesting. At the very end we did a routine that was mostly floor based. It made me want to cry for a completely different reason. Between my sore muscles and my bruised and beaten body from doing a floor routine the night before, I thought I was going to die. Then I decided to cut the dramatics and power through it as best i could. I had to laugh each time I got on the ground. It was either that or start the waterworks, and I’m saving those tears for when I really need them.

The last half hour of the night we did Strengthening with Luke. Although we did stuff I’m used to doing (yoga, planks, side planks, crunches, push-ups, leg toning thingies), I found it quite difficult by the end of the evening to be able to do any of them. But Luke was very attractive, so that made it okay.

During recitals this spring, there was talk of DOB having an Adult Ballet Intensive, and somehow I was cajoled into signing up. Honestly, the only part that appealed to me at all was the fact that I’d get to do a little dancing over the summer and see some of my classmates. Not gonna lie, the terms ballet and intensive and two weeks and three hours a day sounded terrible. It was kind of like running a 5k marathon. Man it would suck so bad to actually do, but wouldn’t it be cool if I could say I did it?

As today slowly approached (Okay, it actually approached quite fast. Isn’t that how it works when you’re dreading something?), my anxiety started to grow. I am not by any means one of the elite in class. I am probably pretty average. My ballet technique sucks, and my turn-out has all but disappeared along with my flexibility. I know the basics of ballet. When I started dancing, I was just old enough be over the age cutoff for ballet, so I did lyrical instead. Well, I did plenty of ballet barre. I remember it being boring and terrible—a necessary evil if you will. I also did pointe my senior year, which obviously is a form of ballet. I have only bad memories of that as well (minus the tutu, cuz that was pretty awesome). I don’t know, there was something about bloody toes that I didn’t quite enjoy. Also, I was recovering from dual sprained angles that I received during auditions, so I was constantly paranoid about re-injuring those.

Anyway, I digress.

My ballet experience is lacking compared to others I dance with. I should probably also mention that these classes aren’t taught by the studio instructors I know, they are being taught by professional dancers.

Insecurity issues, anyone? *raises hand*

So all day long, a steady mantra echoed through my mind: I’m doing this for fun, I’m doing this for fun, I’m doing this for fun . . .

On the drive to the studio, I tried putting my impending doom into different perspectives: Three hours is only the length of one recital. Three hours is only one hour longer than two of the longest possible softball games. I have an entire 27 hours before I have to do it again.

If you are curious, no, they didn’t do anything to relax me.

There were 11 of us in the class. There were no strict rules on attire—which was good, because if I had to sport a leotard, I was out—only a recommendation to have ballet shoes. My shoes technically aren’t ballet shoes, but they’re the same basic layout. They are also pink, so I deemed them acceptable.

And let me just say I found it entertaining that we were all wearing pretty pink shoes, but from the ankles up the majority of us were clad in black or tan tights and workout type dancewear.

Our first activity of the evening was 90 minutes of Ballet Technique, 60 minutes of which we spent at the barre. I was surprised to admit that it was the most pleasant technique experience I’ve ever had. Ross, our instructor, was friendly, had a sense of humor, and gave us really good advice. Like, I actually felt myself improve over the hour because I was learning to do things right (for me) as opposed to struggling and being in pain trying to get my foot or leg where I thought it should be. I think a big part to the pleasantness was being in an adult class. He wasn’t pushing us to have a better turn-out or a higher battenment; he wanted us to do the moves right. There weren’t any new moves that I learned while at the barre, but I did get to brush up on a few forgotten terms like fondu (mmm, fondue). The floor, however, was a different story. I learned new stuff. I faked it till I almost made it.

I was really disappointed when the hour and a half was up, and even more so when I found out it was the only time we’d have Ross as an instructor. I know it’s only been one day, but he was awesome. Maybe he’ll have to fill in for someone.

The next half hour was reserved for Strengthening with Colleen. We worked on abs. It was easy compared to the ab workout we do in class, but I liked it. Busting my ass over crunches is not conducive to me making it through three hours of dancing.

For the last hour we had Modern with Laura. I’m not sure she was aware of our mad skillz at first. I think, walking in to a class of adults, I would probably think they had no idea what they were doing either. We started out with some very simple things. When I say simple, I mean simple. I didn’t know how I’d make it through the hour doing things that were more like warm-ups than dance combinations when we spent the first two hours warming up our bodies already. It was all done to weird drumbeat type music, and she gave us a steady stream of “You guys are doing great!” We moved on to some tricky footwork and leaps, and then, like someone flipped a switch, shit got hard. (See? She saw that we had mad skillz). All of a sudden we were learning this complex 32-count combination and I think everyone was like “Wuuut?” But then we let go and just did it, and it turned out to be really fun.

I think the pacing of the class was really well. We didn’t really get any breaks, but I never felt like I needed one. I also never hit that point where I thought I absolutely could not go on if we had to do it one more time. Which is probably good seeing as we need to do it all over again tomorrow!