Sunday 7 May 2017

Skating to Ballet: Fondu and Sticky Chocolate! Additional Lessons #3!

Hello once again readers!

I do hope that this blog gets read and inspires some people to follow their dreams. I received feedback previously on a forum I post to that said they hope my blog inspires others to follow their dreams. I don't think I could have gotten a nicer compliment and it made me smile to think that this blog is helping to inspire others or even provide a bit of an entertaining read. I haven't said it yet, but thank you everyone who does take the time to read this! It's been a pleasure writing it.

But alas! I came here for a reason. To write about todays lesson (Yup! I'm actually managing to write it the day after the lesson rather than half a week late haha. No more procrastinating.) We did all sorts of interesting stuff during this lesson with a few new pieces as well as practicing the basics/foundations of ballet as a whole. Also, is it weird that every time I listen to music now, I see skating routines that I could do to the music?

ON TO THE LESSON!

Rhythm/Bar Exercises/Pointe-Demi Pointe - So we worked plenty on these. This made up a fair chunk of our lesson and now that I'm getting the rhythm and movements down a bit more, it goes a bit smoother. It's quite interesting and fun learning to move your body in ways you don't normally do so. Smooth and easy. Though I find it hard to squeeze too crazy much into our lessons with the time limitation.

Plie - We are still working mostly on the first three positions here. My rhythm is getting a tiny bit better though I just learned about how I'm supposed to turn my foot when pointing so that's new! It looks so fancy <3 The main part I still struggle with is going into a full plie and not bringing my heels off the ground before I actually get to the grand plie. (Hopefully that's the right term? Correct me if it's not!) Hopefully in time I can get this down.

Weight Transfer - We once again touched down on weight transfer. My coach has reassured me that figuring out the quick 'turns' when transferring weight and where to put my feet will come in time and eventually just be muscle memory. Thank the gods for that because at this point I tend to confuse myself over and over. By the end I did get better however.

Fondu - So we did practice a new movement this lesson called a 'Fondu'. So many strange French words I will have to get used to! It's essentially a plie with the exception of bringing on foot off the floor up along your leg as you go into your squat/plie. The key here is that you're to show 'resistance' as you drag your foot off the ground and up your leg. The way it was explained to me is that you're trying to pull your foot out of sticky toffee or chocolate. It made sense ^_^

Jumping Focus - We tried to make it to jumping this lesson but we ran out of time unfortunately so it's been decided the next lessons focus will be on jumping and some of the more acrobatic moves that come with ballet. Hopefully I'm not doing splits mid-air or anything because I can't even do them on the ground yet! All in good time. I'm looking forward to this lesson!

That's really it for the content of my lesson. A question as posed to me whether or not I'd like to focus on ONLY the skills transferable to skating or if I'd liked to be trained as any other dancer. It's a good question but as much as this is the improve my skating I've found I've really enjoyed learning it. So I opted to learn as any other dancer would and I'll apply the skills to my skating as I see the ability to do so.

That's about it for this entry. Keep following your dreams and fulfilling those passions!

Ciao for now!

Sam


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