Ballet Reflection #11

I started my ballet class with the intermediate level today, and it was absolutely exhausting -- one of the most rigorous workouts that I have had in years, literally. It involved a lot of jumping around and near constant movement, so by the end I almost felt nauseous because my heart was pounding so hard. The class is now longer -- from 4:00 to 5:30, so there is a lot of extra activity that is squeezed in to that half hour. Depsite the exhaustion of it, though, I feel good about how prepared I was. The other girls in the class have been taking ballet for about two years, and for the most part aren't especially better than me, though more experienced. Some of the things we did in class were grand jetees (essentially a flying leap where you run and then jump and do a split in the air), a number of waltz steps involving arm movements and arabesques and plies and being on demi (tip-toe), as well as more turns and barre stretches. The beginning stretches where we practice our plies went much faster than I was used to, and there were more complicated steps thrown in. The first half of the stretches I was a bit perplexed by, but the other half I had caught on to pretty well -- it was just a matter of adjustment. I was happy about the waltz steps and turns, because I seem to be on the same level as the other girls. I know that i need to improve my arm movements for the spins, but I am not alone in that, and I have been practicing at home. The waltz steps are still difficult because they involve a great number of ballet moves in about 2 seconds (arm changes, leg sweeps, arabesques, demis, turns, etc.) but again I am on the same level as most of the class. We practiced doing splits this class, something that I am not used to doing, and I did notice that I am not as flexible as some of the other girls. I have a lot of natural flexibility, but they have been doing this for years and so they are much more used to stretching and moving their bodies that way. I am also happy that my grand jetees seem to be as good as most of the other girls'. It was a difficult first class because of the pace and sheer volume of rigorous work, but I think that I held up well.