Tuesday 22 February 2011

Feeling It Again

So today I'm not such a big fan of ballet stretch as I was yesterday. Today I am suffering the ache of stretched muscles. All of them. We did full body stretching so now I have full body aching. The effort involved in getting out of bed this morning was too great. So I put it off to this afternoon, and still feel achy. Warm bath for me this evening I think!!

One of the reasons I have started blogging about my ballet classes is because I have found a few other blogs from adult ballet beginners and they've been informative and encouraging :) But there's only a few of the. It's nice to read that other people are doing I'm doing and achieving a good degree of success, and they say lots of useful things about how to make progress as an adult beginner, how to talk to people about what you do, why you should wear a leotard and pink tights to class, and many other useful things.

So if you are interested, here are some linkies!

Adult Beginner is a woman in her 30s in America who has been taking classes for well over a year now. She still can't do a pirouette, even though she takes 2 classes a week at open level. This is a source of great relief. I thought I was a weirdo for being so bad at them, turns out I'd be a weirdo if I was doing it right after 6 weeks! She chatters like she's talking to a non-ballet friend. She likes to pass on crazy metaphors from her teacher (nicknamed Smirnoff, because he is Russian!) and she posts photos and sometimes cartoons. She also reviews books. She's hilarious, and I love her :)

David, of Dave Tries Ballet is another interesting character. He's 23, and has been doing ballet for a few months, but is ALREADY of a level to be performing on stage! Jeals. He's doing a small part in Coppelia with his dance school in Princeton. And he takes 6.5 hours of class a week! I wish I could take that many classes. Maybe then I would make as much progress. Or maybe I would just ache all the time! He tells us about his classes, about ballet more generally, and about ballets he goes to see. He also has some advice for brand new beginners as well. I like how much of a ballet nerd he is. It makes me feel a bit less crazy!

Henrik, who posts on Tights and Tiaras, is not a beginner at all, but I love the way he writes. He's not condescending at all and has a lot of really interesting information, including a series on the tools of the trade, and he's just posted the first part of a collaboration on partnering, which is really interesting.

There are a couple of others on my blog roll too, but these ones are my three favourites.

Love and Kisses

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, that's me!
Ok, so, just now when I read, "still can't pirouette" I actually bristled a little and then had to have a little talk with myself like, "Dude, chill. She's right. You said it yourself". And then I was like, "ok Dude, fine, what evs" and then I was like ,"hey, ps, nice shout-out and linkage", and then I was like, "Right?!"
Anyway!
So glad you commented on my blog so I could follow the link and find your blog! Super-fun to find more adult beginners out there.

hiccup42 said...

Hi adultbeginner. So excited you commented me! You're like a celebrity in my head. Lol.
Didn't realise I might offend with the pirouette comment, but wouldn't have written it if you hadn't written it!. I still suck at them, of course, but I can summon a mediocre passe tournant if I try really hard. I was so excited by that!

DaveTriesBallet said...

As AB said - that's me!
So glad I found your blog from your comment - there's a great community of Adult Beginners on t'internet and it's always good to have someone else join :)
Yep, I'm a ballet nerd and I'm proud of it! Keep up the hard work and you'll see progress, even if you can only take one class a week.
Dave