Getting centered

My first time in center was a disaster!  For an extremely shy person such as myself, it was also like a point of no return.  I mean, once you’ve stood in a skin-tight leotard, tights and  nothing else  in front of 20-something snickering 19-year-olds and an accompanist that keeps looking at you and shaking their head, it doesn’t get any worse, right?

The reason for the snickering and head shaking was that it seemed like once I was away from the barre I couldn’t balance at all.  No, I don’t mean in releve or passe (which obviously at the time I wasn’t going to be doing anytime soon). I mean, we were in first position and the teacher wanted us to tendu to second and practice shifting our weight. Well, I couldn’t do that with out having to correct for it by losing what little turnout I had.  There was a lot of wobbling.  Then she wanted us to tendu degage and actually lift up the foot.  Yeah, that wasn’t going to be happening for me for a few more weeks.

Then we practiced sautes.  Have I mentioned that I have never been good at jumping?  So, the exercise was simple in theory: we were going to saute to the beat of the music, then turn around halfway while in the air( I don’t know if this has a name besides saute while half turning), then jump into second position and back to first.  The first two sautes were ok, I was not in correct timing, but at least I left the ground.  The turning sautes were not ok.  I near lost my balance on my first attemp to turn and almost fell.  And even though we were supposed to stay in place while jumping, I think in the course of the exercise I travelled about three feet backwards, almost landing on a felow student.

This was around the time the accompanist started giving me the stink eye.  I got to be honest, I almost couldn’t blame him.  Here he was, playing this beautiful music for us to have class to, and I was ruining the beauty of it by clumsily heaving myself around.  I was mortified, though at the same time indignant.  After all, if only experienced students were allowed they should have said so, right?   I was a beginner, who signed up for a beginner’s class and I would have never dreamed that it would involve much public humiliation due to my obvious beginner-ness.

Just when I though it wouldn’t get harder, we went across the floor.  We did chasses, which (of course) I couldn’t really do, but watching the people who did know was nice.  They looked so graceful!  I vowed to one day be that graceful, haha.   I decided that my practice at home, which had so far just consisted of plies and rising up to strengthen my legs, should be updated to include some kind of center.  Before my plan had been to wait until I sort of had my balance before attampting center but if in class we were going to be expected to do it, then better to be pRepared than sorry.

The Learning Curve

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the learning curve for ballet, at least as far as it applied to me, was sloooooow. At times it didn’t even curve but just flatlined.  Still, I was motivated and pushed on through.

When I first started, I hardly had any turnout to speak of.  When I would plie I would check to make sure my knees were somewhere over my toes, but at first my body wasn’t having it.  I would just do plies in first and second positions, as I realized anything more than that was just too ambitious for me at the time.

I would also practice this thing which I’m not sure what it’s called because the teacher would say the name in French, but it involved bending forward while keeping your legs tightly together and straight (Edit: it was a cambre forward, or port de corps).  My first time attempting it, my legs were neither together nor straight but seeing the people in the class who could actually do the move, and how beautiful it looked, made me determined to practice it at home until I got it right.   Good thing I wasn’t holding my breath on that because it would be months of practice before I could even get my legs to stay straight and together,  much later until I actually kept my back straight and touched the floor.

And then there were tendues which, as long as I had the barre for support, were actually possible.  I’m not saying I did them well, but at least what I was doing could sort of resemble what I was trying to do.  I still did not have the strength to actually point my foot though I didn’t even realize it at the time.  In fact, it wasn’t until the first time that I really pointed my foot that I realized that I had never truly done it all the way before.  But as we stood there at the barre tendu-ing it felt like we were actually dancing!

Overall, I wasn’t completely discouraged, though at times a bit frustrated.  I had noticed by this time that I seemed to have a very difficult time balancing.  The second I took my hand of the barre I would lose my balance.  I wish I could say that I didn’t let this bug me, but I would be lying.  It did totally start wearing on me, affecting my self-image and making me think  that I completely sucked.  Which is not true, we just all have different strngths and weaknesses, though it’s hard to think about it rationally when upset.

And all this  before the dreaded center part, which is another post since I have no idea what word length is allowed on here…

All that weight

“That’s a lot of weight to carry,” I heard a voice say, as I sat on the floor of the dance studio, stretching before class.

I blushed.  Even though I had not been mentioned by name, and had been looking down at the floor so I had no way of knowing if this person referred to me, it was awkward.  They had been discussing breasts and previous to this I had never in my life heard anyone refer to boobs as “weight”.  And so, as far as “carrying weight”, well I had a lot to carry.

Before signing up for ballet, I had been so excited about my weight loss that I didn’t stop to think if my top-heaviness would be a problem.  Short story: it was.  Quick physics lesson:  When an object’s center of gravity is located closer to the top of the object than the bottom, it becomes more and more unstable the closer it is to the top, assuming the bottom doesn’t compensate for it.  Well, I was the picture of instability!  In real life (meaning while not in ballet class), I had a habit of leaning back slightly to compensate for the weight.   Especially since my bottom half does not match my top half.  That went out the window the first time the teacher corrected me on my posture.  “lean forward, shift your weight to the front  onto your toes, not your heels” she said.  I heard, I understood the words, there was just no way that my body was going to be able to physically pull it off.  I resolved to work on my back and core strength.

So, this was the first  time it came to my attention  that my body type(shape?) was going to present an additional challenge.  At the same time though, I was super motivated.  I would show them!  When there’s a will there’s a way and nothing strenghthens my will like a challenge.

I would do ballet,  my “extra weight” and other’s opinion of it be damned.

Strengthening up

After that first lesson, it was obvious to me that my amount of leg strength just was not going to cut it. I decided the best way to build up my leg strength would be  by doing plies and releves at home.  I did them repetitively, every night after finishing my school work.  I won’t lie, it was tedious.  However, I knew that if I wanted to improve at ballet ( meaning be able to do anything at all) then I would have to get stronger legs.  At this point I was too overwhelmed to even think about doing anything with my arms.  I figured that my first priority was actually being able to stand there without feeling like I was tipping over and I figured strengthening my legs would help greatly.  Once I had that part down I could begin to worry about making it look ballet-ish.

So while this did help me get stronger legs, and eventually find my balance (at least while on both feet and flat), there was still much room left for improvement.

Another thing I had to work on was my core. That has never been a strong area of mine ( well, lets be honest: my whole body had never been my strong point)  and I knew that in order to be able to get better I needed to work on that also.

Let me tell you something though: it worked!  Thanks to my repetitive plies, my legs became stronger and more defined.  For the first time in my life my butt actually protrudes past my back and/or  thighs!  I actually Stopped being ashamed of my skinny, underdeveloped calves.

Whenever I hear anyone ask what exercise will make one’s butt look nice, i always hear “squats”.  Screw that, in my experience ( having tried both) they do Not Compare to what plies and grand plies can do for you.  I didn’t start ballet to get a nice butt (honestly, i had given up on ever having a nice behind),  but the tightening, lifting and shaping that occurs naturally from ballet is awesome!

In the beginning

My first ballet class ever was an experience I’ll never forget.  I was excited, of course, but now looking back I feel like I was so ignorant because I had no idea just how hard it was going to be!  I had been doing yoga for a few months by then, as well as walking uphill frequently, and of course I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but I had no idea how hard just simply standing in first position would be.  Come to think of it, I had no idea what first position was.

When I decided to sign up for ballet lessons, it was kind of on impulse.  After a lifetime of being heavy (for my frame) and inactive I had lost some weight – and kept it off – about a year before and was having one of those “live for the moment, age is nothing  but a number” moments, so when thinking back of stuff I had wanted to do as a child but was unable to, of course I though of ballet.  And when I saw that my community college offered ballet lessons for the cost of one unit I was like “heck, yea!”

Except I didn’t research what a ballet class was actually like.  Didn’t look up any of the many, many youtube videos available, nor did I read any of the fine blogs that I have read through by now.  No, I figured since it was a class all I would have to do would be to show up on time and ready to learn.

So there I was, first day of classs. And all the girls are like ten years younger than me, which wasn’t too surprising since my classmates in other classes are also that age.  What did intimidate me, however, was that they actually seemed  to know about ballet.  And they had done it before.  So much for it being a beginner class (I didn’t learn until much later that a (prospective) dancer can spend a while at the beginning level before moving up).

There was no time to stand around and be intimidated though.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had both overestimated my physical fitness level and underestimated the sheer difficulty of anything ballet!   My thighs burned in plies, I though my calves were on fire when we rose up on demi-point , and there was just  no way that I could  balance.

On the positive side, at least that day we stayed at the barre and there was no opportunity for me  to completely embarrass myself in center (that came another day ). Regardless, my calves and thighs were so sore that I barely dragged myself to my car after class and wondered what I had gotten into.

I guess I should clarify that at the time I had no idea that I would do ballet for longer than that semester.  I was just acting out a childhood fantasy.  But I like a challenge and I love to dance, though it has never been one of my talents.    But ballet, I just love the way it makes me feel.  And suddenly, my lack of talent doesn’t matter to me.     My lack of an appropriate body type   Is no longer important.  Once I begin to dance I just feel so alive.

And thats why I keep doing it.