Thursday, December 13, 2012

Semaine 22

Not much to publish this week. I didn't go to Thursday class, I went to Zumba instead. And last week I wasn't motivated to go to Clark's class. When it's such a late class that ends at 8:45 PM and I work the next day, it's hard to want to go to class and be home at 9 PM, 1 hour before I have to be in bed.

No video this week. Monday's class was good and sweaty. I contemplated doing a video of the barrework, but since I wasn't going to be able to film until Thursday, I didn't think about it before class, taking note of the barre exercises. The best I could do is just remember our warm-up and a couple other exercises. Maybe I'll wait til I get a portable barre for those videos...

Corner exercise this week was just a souté arabesque one, super easy. At least I didn't feel like I was clomping around ungracefully. :)

Sorry, kind of disappointing.

The Winter/Spring Schedule @ BalletNova is posted:

Basically, the schedule is the exact same. Walsh's BBFNB class is 6:15-7:30 PM (with the accompanist, yay!) just like now, which I'll register for, with back-up classes still being Clark's class at 7:30-8:45 PM. The reason I have to use Thursday as my secondary class is because the policy at my hospital is for us to work 4 Mondays or Fridays per 6 week schedule. So, this means I have to work 4 Fridays since I have to have all Mondays off. With us adding night shift to our mix, I hope it doesn't interfere too much with my class schedule. Friday's 6:30-7:45 PM class with Burstein is also an option.

I won't be going to class next week since I work the 17th, 18th, and 19th and then we leave for Charleston SC for Christmas with my parents. Thursday night there is class; however, Jeff has Jordan XI's he wants to get so I'm going to be napping as much as I can before we go to the mall at midnight to get them. Next ballet class won't be until Dec 31st, but I think the studio is closed =/ Not sure. I might look into seeing when Del Rey ballet studio has classes and maybe I'll start going there... either that or metropolitan fine arts. Will have to follow-up and I'll keep you posted.

This is fantastic :) I have to start working on Mei-Mei's puggie pirouettes 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Semaine 21

I think I'm going to approach my blogging every week a little differently than I have been this whole time. It's hard to reliably get videos taken after class (I know some of you have taken notice that there haven't been ANY videos since Semaine 18 and it wasn't even me in it), and because it's a little awkward when girls start filtering into the studio, I'm going to use the inspiration I've gained from watching the Jenna Marbles YouTube videos (as my friend Darren says, minus the cursing and dogs in the videos) and try to re-create interesting/challenging ballet exercises and edit my own videos (!!!!!) on my MacBook Air.

Now, since we don't have an appropriately-sized unused section of the condo OR spacious areas of non-carpeted flooring, I'm going to take my trusty little laptop down to our indoor basketball courts during "off hours" to minimize awkwardness that this whole idea would create, should some guys come in to shoot some hoops. I'm so so excited, because as I am writing this post, I'm literally teaching myself how to use iMovie =)

So Monday night's class was good. My ballet class friend Mark wasn't there and neither was Kelly! It felt a little lonely...

Exercises earlier tonight at the barre focused on a lot of staying on relevé to passé in hold, to get us ready for all the pirouetting we were going to be doing in center.

Anyway, some combinations I shall demonstrate:

I swear, when I recorded this, my feet were recorded for exercise A... and then when I clipped it down for editing it chopped off my feet! Ahh! I'll have to give myself that cushion for space later. Jeff tells me this is an "aspect ratio" issue... I am not a computer person, haha... 

 The music was also a looooot quieter when I edited the video but it exported a lot louder. 
Oh well, not bad for first video, right? 


a) {in center, fifth position right foot front} arms a la seconde, tendu front, tendu side, tendu back, sweep to front, close fifth. plié, pirouette, close back. Repeat other foot.

b) {in center, preparacion right foot back} balancé right, balancé left, tombé-pas de bourré, chassé, plié, pirouette. I know my head isn't turned correctly. Then there's the whole issue with my arms...

c) {this was the corner exercise, preparacion right foot back} step right to waltz turn, 3-steps, waltz turn, repeat. Next week Constance says we'll add the pirouette after the sweep. Since I forgot to even DO this exercise altogether, here is a good beefed up version of it!


This is Larry Payne, who teaches ballet at Long Beach Community Center in CA demonstrating the on-line waltz (and in a basketball court too, ah!) the way it's supposed to look. Ha. Looks a lot better with the waltz en tourant (turning waltz) afterward.

Lots of pirouette work to be done I know, but the semester isn't over until Feb 3rd, so we'll just have to see how much better things come with time!

OK, well til Thursday or next week!! Happy Dancing!