Hello once again Readers!
I must apologize for the slow-coming entries lately. Unfortunately there has not been much of crazy interest to write about until the last week when things have slowly gotten more interesting. I COULD write about my coming wedding (Which I'm so totally nervous about!!) but I feel this isn't really the place for that. But alas, I have had a recent ballet lesson and have plenty to share about it in both regards to the content of the lesson and how I can apply it to skating.
First off, I mentioned previously that there was potential to do private ballet lessons throughout the summer. That opportunity has been a bit more cemented now. I've got lessons rotating every two weeks for a while now up until the end of june I believe. After that it'll be up for discussion. Either way, I'm super excited to continue!
Without further ado, The lesson:
Foot Exercises/Warm up - As with any pursuit that you decide to jump in to. There is almost always a series of warmups and exercises designed to get you ready for your lesson. Well, almost always...pretty sure you don't warm up to make a dress or something. That comes with experience. We spent a bit of time going through proper foot exercises and position to warm up. Its really interesting seeing the different ways you can move your body that you're not used to. (And trust me, I'm not used to it. My muscles are screaming at me "WHYYYYYYY!?!?!".) But it's totally worth it and simple enough. Up and down with each foot at half and then what could be considered en pointe. Although we didn't go THAT far, It definitely helped me to understand these different positions better.
Plies (1st, 2nd and 3rd Postion) - This is obviously a staple in ballet. Or at least I get that impression. A lot of things stem from these positions and pairing them with arm positions. That's what I gather so far. We worked on the first three positions of Plie which is with feet together, shoulder width apart and then making a kind of fancy V with one heel nestled in the arch of your foot. I'm ok with these, although I am quickly discovering how VERY tight my ankles and calves are as I cannot squat without lifting my heels off the floor. I'll need to find a way to stretch out these muscles more.
Port de bras - From what I understand, This is simply a fancy name (As all names in ballet are.) for arm positions. We worked on each of these positions in turn (Five total I believe.) and my instructor actually helped me to finally figure out shoulder/hand position. Before I was hunching a lot but now I know to pull my shoulders back and down which makes for better posture.
Posture - Just a quick bit, but dang! Posture makes me certainly look and feel more comfortable! Just saying! <3
Allegro - Jumps. We worked quite a bit on a few different jumps during this lesson. As I said above, I have a very hard time lowering my heels during this. I tend to jump from my toes which as a skater, is normal. But in ballet it is evidently not the ideal way to do so. So I will have to work on my ankles! Beyond that though I did enjoy these and found that when I jumped in time with the music rather than focusing on my jumps, I did relax into them and lower my feet more. Yet again I've hit a mental roadblock. I need to stop overthinking things!
So those were the main things we worked on! I've got some practice/homework to do over the next week to prep for my next lesson. Gosh dang though! I didn't expect to be nearly as sore as I am now. My initial lessons I wasn't quite as sore. But this is a whole different level. I'm actually with a different instructor now and she tends to push a bit harder which I actually like. The push helps :)
That's about it for now! Hopefully it was a decent read this week. I really do need to keep up with these entries but with so little activity as my wedding approaches it really has been difficult to get any decent entries/ideas going. I've got a whole bunch of unfinished/unpublished entries that I started but couldn't get behind. Perhaps I'll go back and look through them and amalgamate them into an entry?
Thanks for reading.
Ciao for now!
Sam
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