Naughty me, I skipped a ballet class tonight, but it was our anniversary celebration so I guess that is justified. I thinking thought, I am probably going to feel it on Monday when I have my first grade 5 class as it would made it an entire week since I had been to class.

This month I start my graded classes and I had been thinking about going to Fancy Pants School of ballet for my grade 5. My teacher had said she would try to find some time slots for me to go, but after some thought, I decided to go to another smaller ballet school where I was taking another adult class.

I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time after my first disappointment that they didn’t have any space for me. Like sure, this school was more prestigious, and closer to my home, but would it be the best thing for me? I had tried grade 5 classes in both schools and in Fancy Pants school there was 20 students in a class, which is pretty packed. The smaller school only had 10 and when I went there the teacher worked with me a bit to correct my technique, which I think is really important. I don’t know if the Fancy Pants school would of bothered with me as much, as they are  more focused on creating the ‘stars of tomorrow’, not some older inflexible adult on a mission to fulfill a personal goal. Smaller school the teachers were really nice and friendly and because it was small they knew my name. Fancy Pants school was large and the teacher in the 5th grade class was friendly in a more polite way.

In the end I decided to do my graded classes in the smaller school, though a bit more further to travel, I felt the teacher could give us more attention due to the small class size which I guess for me wanting to do my exams, is a good thing… I need all the help I can get! I will keep going to the Fancy Pants for my adult classes though, but I have dropped another school (which was even more further away). So now I will be going to 2 schools in total.

At the small school get to wear an awesome fuchsia leotard to class too…! Oh dear….

SO.. I’ve been feeling pretty pumped about joining the grade 5 classes at Fancy Pants School of Ballet this past few weeks. PUMPED!! I have been having dreams about it too, good ones.

After my trial I had been waiting to find out what classes I can enroll in, the administration ladies told me to wait a couple weeks till they sorted out the class rosters. Ok sure.

So two weeks roll by, I went to class excited to find out what the schedule would be. I walk up the the administration ladies, “Hi, I want to know which classes I can enroll into for grade 5.” She looks at me and then looks at a stack of papers lying on the counter. “grade 5..? We are full.” WHAT??!? “Er, what do you mean classes are full? You told me to come back in 2 weeks to see what was available.”  (???!!!) “Sorry, all the classes are full. Students have been taking classes for a month already, so they are slotted into times already. Are you looking to do the exam?”  I considered pleading and telling them I wouldn’t really take much space in the room if I suck my stomach in real hard. Yes, I was feeling pretty desperate at this point and pretty annoyed since THEY were the ones who told me to come back to ask… did they not have that information  considering students had been attending classes for a month already?!

OK, so I take a deep breath and try to sound calm, “so what do I do now? Shall I come back in a month and check if the schedule changes, or if students drop out?” “You could try, but they are full.” (??!) Err.. I’m not even sure what that means.

So later in class my teacher asks how the trials went (we hadn’t seen each other in a couple weeks because of term break). I told her I was OK’ed for the class but there are no spaces. “Ok, I’ll see if I can pull some string for you guys” she  told us “But you need to REALLY want to do this, other wise its not going to make me look good.” “Yes, Yes, we REALLY want to do this!”, “OK.”.

So YAY, sorted!

Thats the good thing about having a teacher who is a senior teacher at the school. They can pull strings

Time to get crafty!

Snip! Snip! Off come the elastic bands!

One shoe!

Two shoe!

Finish!

If you were to ask the 5 year old me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I probably would of said a dancer. I didn’t really know about ballet as such, but I watched a lot of MTV and I wanted to be able to dance like the background dancers on TV.

I remember dancing around my living room, leaping in the air and spinning around and doing silly dances to Weird Al Yankovich. I also have memories of choreographing dances to Kylie Minogue ‘Locomotion’ with my friends and asking the teacher if we could perform them to the class.

I never knew to ask my mum for dance classes though. I guess it just never occurred to me to ask, and she grew up in a generation where people don’t do extra-curricula’s. The closest I got to dance lesson though was gymnastics when I was about 6 or 7. My best friend was doing gymnastics and so I wanted to as well.

Gymnastics was a lot of fun! I loved the mat and it was where I accomplished my first forward split. I wasn’t very good at the bar, however and the beam was a little bit scary. I think it was the elevation. I also entered a competition, only the concept of competition didn’t quite hit home till I was up doing the beam in front of the judges, so I went along and did my leg lifts all the way to the end. Only to be told be my teacher that we were actually supposed to be doing the routine we had been learning. Oops. I guess I missed the part when she told us. Well that, along with the fact I had to wear another girls leotard (crotch germs), left me just a bit mentally scarred. Gymnastics didn’t last long however, for some reason I can’t remember now my dad decided we didn’t have the money for it anymore.

Since then I have been involved in some dance here and there during my teens.. I have a vague memory of practicing a dance to grease, complete with poodle skirt and bobby socks and performed it to an audience. I also remember doing a few classes in river dance with a friend at a local hall. They had a  what must of been an advanced ballet class before our class, and we would sit and watch the 2 students dance a routine en pointe. One of the dancers I recall quite vividly was kinda old.. and wrinkly and the 15 year old me was wondering why someone so old was doing ballet. (I am sure the students in my grade 5 class think the exact same thing of me, its come back to bite me.)

She didn’t seem very fit though.. she looked heavy on her feet in the leaps and she looked more worn out than the other dancer who I am guessing was 18 or something. But regardless of this woman’s age, there was some sense of admiration that she could still dance (en pointe even!) to this whole routine. I still think about her sometimes when I go to class “if she can do it, so can I!” It was a seed.

Like most of us adult dancers, I wish my mother put me in ballet lessons when I was young, but I know now as an adult beginner I probably appreciate my classes a lot more and am more willing to work hard at it than if I was younger. I love the feeling of being graceful and working towards creating something beautiful. It is pure joy.

Ah, this brings back those childhood memories

Haha, found this old skool 1954 cartoon on Youtube. Love the teachers name ‘Ms. Placement’. Knock yourself out

Video of an adult beginners class in Russia. Their first repertoire! Yay!

Repertoire Adult Beginners from ilya kuznetsov on Vimeo.

On side note, I’m wondering why are they all so skinny?!

Argh.

As I climbed out of bed this morning my muscled ached and joints creaked with stiffness. I was feeling like an old woman as it hurt just to lift myself off the couch this morning.  Oh the joys of  delayed onset muscle soreness.

It seems quite usual that after my ballet classes my body seems incapacitated from muscle pain. Is this normal? I am wondering. Ok sure, I have only been dancing for a month and a half which is not a long time at all, but I was half expecting my muscles to adapt somewhat to its use. You know, like just hurt a little less after?

Does this get better? Is it just because my body isn’t use to being worked out? I wonder if ballet dancers are so conditioned that their muscles don’t ache anymore,  surely if you use them that much, right?

I have no idea. Biology wasn’t my best subject at school. Neither was P.E. Ha!