yesterday two nice things happened.
the first was that i was trying to learn - finally, after six years - how to do a shoulder roll. i'm taking m____'s class at tulane and she likes floor work but she's also very patient and is willing to break things down. plus i like her style - if there were a ballet version of floor work (post-graham), this would be it. she's very clean and deliberate and lyrical without being gushy. there's a kind of quiet calm at the heart of the movement. it makes me want to be able to do the stupid floor stuff even while it literally strikes fear into my very core. i actually started coldsweating while watching her demonstrate an exercise tuesday. (it wasn't as bad as i thought. this is better than j.a.'s class, where it's always as bad as i thought, or worse.)
anyway, last year m____ had offered to work with me on shoulder rolls but we could only do it after class (she was taking along with me, not teaching) and neither of us really had time. this week i told her my goal is to be able to do a shoulder roll (without freaking out about it) by the end of the semester. so yesterday after class i went up to her and asked for a tutorial.
she's like, ok, so start off in plow pose (a yoga position where you're lying on your back and your feet are over your head, touching the floor behind you). she said she wanted to see if there was a flexibility issue with my back that might be making the roll hard for me.
'but i don't think that's it,' she said, 'because i know you're like really flexible.'
i'm lying on the back of my neck with my feet over my head, which is very uncomfortable, and i'm like, 'uh, what? no. i'm actually really tight all over. like, embarrassingly so.'
'really?' she says. 'i thought you were super flexible.'
i'm struggling to get my toes planted on the floor behind me. 'that's sweet of you,' i say.
'you do have some tightness in your back,' she says, 'i guess that makes it a little harder, but..'
and all i can think is HOW CAN SHE NOT HAVE NOTICED HOW STUPIDLY INFLEXIBLE I AM? i am the girl who is like, when the class is doing straddles and everyone else has their chests and faces on the floor, i'm basically sitting straight up. it's very conspicuous.
so it's kind of awesome that she was fooled!
.
and that night in ballet class, j____ was teaching - she taught some classes this summer but now she's doing monday nights and i'm not taking class on mondays. so i haven't seen her in a while.
i was feeling crabby and i had been looking forward to class with i__, the usual tuesday night teacher. i was thinking i might leave after the barre and go read a book or something. the whole barre i was thinking this, and then we got to battements (the last barre exercise).
she came around to my side of the studio and i'm battement-ing and she's like 'whoa. you look really strong.' and i whisper 'thanks' and keep doing battements. and she's like 'have you been taking class? you look really strong.' and i nod.
and all she means really is that my leg is higher than usual. i noticed last thursday my extension is a little better, which i chalked up to the 3+ classes per week.
anyway i stayed till the end of j___'s class. i mean, since i'm so strong and all.
.
ok but then today happened. and today i've been feeling crappy because i have to write a new short story for tuesday and i have a sort of fleshed-out idea but no sense of the plot and not enough time (i only found out i was up yesterday - half the group is going to be gone next week so i got bumped) and this means i pretty much have to work for a long time every night for it to get done for tuesday. and it probably won't get done in time and it'll be half-finished just like the last one and i'll be disappointed and frustrated.
and then i went to pointe class. i've been wearing my shoes at the barre and it is time to start taking center on pointe. the studio just started offering pointe class again (they took a break for the summer, despite my pleading). i'd been hoping to use the weekly pointe class as my slow strength-gaining opportunity for center work, with an eye towards being prepared for nutcracker auditions, but no fucking dice. they scheduled nutcracker auditions two weeks after starting pointe class back up. i talked to g___ last week about wanting to audition but knowing i won't be ready, pointe-wise, for auditions. and he was super nice and encouraging and complimentary (my physique is perfect, my line is perfect, even the fact that i don't have crazy flexibility is perfect for corps work, and i should just try the audition and they'll push me to be ready and if i'm not ready by performance then it's ok and i can do it next year).
so i didn't wear my shoes in class yesterday, thinking i should save my shoes (which are on their way out) and my feet till pointe class today. and i didn't wear my shoes at the barre today, so that i could try center work without being fatigued by barre. for my first attempt i wanted to be totally fresh.
and oh god it was a nightmare. like, a nightmare.
on the plus side, my balance is better than ever and my shoes look really nice on my feet. i did relevés instead of pirouettes, per usual, and i managed to stay up for a while. i felt in control. it was nice. but as soon as i tried to turn (and this is positive too, that i even tried to turn - though honestly it's so obvious that i am strong enough to get up on one foot and balance in passé that it was clearly ridiculous not to try turning) - as soon as i tried i couldn't get all the way up and came down immediately. it's just totally scary to go up en pointe while changing my facing. it's disorienting. so (also positive), i shifted to a go-back-to-basics thing where i did four quarter-turns on my right side, just to get the feel for changing direction when going up. and those were fine. i didn't have time to try half-turns but i'll do it tomorrow. that pirouette bullshit is totally mental.
also positive is that i have always been able to do piqué turns on pointe, and i can still do them.
so then everything else was fucking horrible. we did this awful exercise where we were supposed to do high développés while relevé-ing on the same foot over and over and also shifting our facing and i just could not do it. i tried it once and came around to the back to try again and i was panicking so bad i thought i was going to pass out, which is a first for ballet class. the panicking has happened before but not feeling faint from it. when i say i couldn't do it, i mean, like, i really was not even close. i'm not being too hard on myself, or self-deprecating, or whatever. it was a disaster. i did it a second time, trying the développé at forty-five degrees instead of as-high-as-possible, and it was better, but still horrible.
then we did fouetté-arabesques and i thought well, i can do these, this will be ok. and it still wasn't ok. i was jumping to get en pointe instead of relevé-ing, and so i had no control at all. it seems like in general i don't have a sense of how much force i need to get up to pointe - either i don't give it enough (e.g., pirouettes) or i give too much (e.g., fouetté-arabesques).
so ok, i can work on figuring out how much force i need to use. that's a reasonable thing to need to figure out. and this was my first class doing center work in almost a year. and i have little experience with pointe work anyway. the fact that i totally fucking blow is to be expected.
it's just that it's so unfortunate. my refusal to work on pointe has kept me from years of performance opportunities in baton rouge and now at least one year of performing in new orleans. and i've had pointe shoes for the past four years in an effort to get back (or start trying in earnest, unlike the twelve-year-old me) but this is the wall i hit. it sucks to suck in class. i am straight-up flailing around in front of girls who have much less technique and experience than i do. it's embarrassing that they are watching. but honestly that's such a small part of it. it's more frustrating personally that i am so competent on flat and such a beginner on pointe. so then i'm thinking, i should just go to the earlier pointe class for beginners. but i don't want to take their beginner barre - even though i have the pointe experience of, like, a twelve-year-old, i have the strength and general technique of someone much older, and that does make a huge difference. i don't need a beginner class. what g___ said last week about nutcracker auditions was sort of an epiphany to me - i have the technique, i just don't have the time on pointe.
so i get in the car after class and i want to die and auditions are saturday and the studio has only even offered two pointe classes since like, last april, and this was my last chance to try center work before the auditions. and it's so unfair. and how can i audition when i am so unprepared. they aren't going to let me perform with them. i put so much work into these various disciplines but never get good enough to actually do anything with them. i'm a mediocre writer full of fear and assorted other hang-ups. i'm a mediocre dancer full of fear and assorted other hang-ups. well really it's just fear. i've been thinking all day about it, how afraid i am and what am i going to do, what is there to do other than just doing.
i talk to brett briefly on the phone, trying not to cry, and then i meet sarah at the coffeeshop for our writing date. the story i'm starting is about dancers, and i have never written about dancers before, and what a fucking night to start. do i even want to write about this since i suck so badly at it?
but the writing date goes ok, i start a scene and then suddenly am full of things i'm interested in writing about.
and on the way home i decide:
i won't take the beginner pointe class. i just need to slow down. those exercises were too fast for me. if i had done them at half time i would have been more in control. it's probably a good thing to be given intermediate-level pointe work right now - i should just modify the exercises so that i can actually give them a shot. i'll ask the teacher about this; i'm sure she will say it's ok.
and
i always hit a wall with pointe work because i am unwilling to suffer through technique class in pointe shoes. i argue to myself that i need technique class to, you know, keep up with my technique. if i am only doing single pirouettes all week long on pointe, maybe i will lose my doubles on flat. this is a fine argument but really it's just that i don't want to be totally miserable and struggling on pointe. but if i don't struggle for a while i'll never get better.
so it's time to struggle. i have to suck it up. in both senses of the phrase. i'm aiming for class four days a week (which means i'll mostly get three). i will wear my flat shoes at the barre and my pointe shoes at center for every technique class. i will allow myself one technique class a week in flat so i can have some fun and feel confident. this means i have two more opportunities (thursday and saturday technique classes) to try center work on pointe before the audition. i might not get cast in nutcracker since i'm, uh, obviously not ready right now. but if i work at this shit now, wherever i end up next year, i should be strong enough on pointe that i will be able to perform somewhere.
and i was thinking how i never push myself and i want everything to come easily and that's why i'm so mediocre at everything, but it's not really true. i'm taking these damn modern classes and i dread every single one. it is so uncomfortable and scary but i'm doing it anyway.
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