I’ll Be Back (Maybe)

Hello again after far too long a time. Just so this doesn't end up as one more blog petering out into nothingness, I've decided to write the last post on Dorky Dancing – for now. While this intro may sound dramatic, nothing terrible has happened. I'm still dancing four times a week, still improving, still …

Stretching Sucks And I’ve Been Doing It Wrong

Admit it, it does. If you disagree, you're a) not an adult dance beginner, b) very lucky or c) both. For the record, I'm talking about stretching for the splits here. The light stretching you do to ease up DOMS or limber up is perfectly lovely. Training your body to bend in ways it doesn't …

What The Assemblé?

We first did assemblés in ballet a couple of weeks ago. This is a bit unsual: our class has been going strong for two years now and I understand most teachers expose their students to the horrors of assemblé early. Our first teacher, M., favoured the jeté and never taught us assemblé at all. When …

Missed You!

ARGH I've missed blogging so much, you guys! I've been crazy busy in this past few weeks. A couple of minor health blerghs nonwithstanding, I've been dancing and training like crazy, got involved with a cool new volunteer project, set up and enacted a social media strategy at work, went to see a burlesque show, …

Avengers Assemblé

Are there any ballet-themed superheroes? Widowmaker, the sexy sniper from Overwatch, has a ballet background, but she's really more of a villain. Anyhow, I continue to feel like a superhero in ballet class. A few weeks ago, I was all frustrated, and now, I feel like I'm rocking it. Weird. My higher relevés have a …

Actual Improvements!

Last week's ballet class proved to be rather educational and, for a change, uplifting. I was still feeling in top form and keeping up well both stregnth- and technique-wise. This inspired me to finally ask Birdie for advice about my weird foot sickling problem. Sickled feet are the devil in ballet, as all of you …

Quiet Times For Setting Goals

I've returned to the gym successfully and now have quite a bit of DOMS to show for it. Otherwise, that's just about it for now: both my modern schools have two weeks of winter holidays. One down, one to go. The Wednesday school offers free-for-all adult classes every evening, but the Intermediate/Advanced classes are always …

Back To Ballet

My new phid has been healing very well – it has already finished peeling! So a week after I got it, I went back to ballet class. I was getting a bit restive – I'm not used to having evenings off, so at first, I was at a loss what to do with myself. Fortunately, …

Another Recital!

It seems that whenever I join a modern class, I immediately get drafted into a recital. Which is a good thing! In yesterday's Advanced modern, Grace asked us if we'd be willing to participate in the studio's summer recital in the city theatre. My Monday / Friday school only has a recital for everybody every …

Advanced Realisations

I've now been to Advanced modern class three times and have had some time to settle in. It is very different from both Monday and Friday mixed-level classes in several ways. Here are some things that struck me as very different: The technical difficulty of the Advanced class is somewhat limited. It requires a solid …