I’m going to jump right back in and muse on the two classes I’ve taken so far during my triumphant (?) return to ballet! But actually! This is a lie because my first class back postpartum round 2 was with Alyona in Wilmington during my visit to my family there last winter. I left the kids with my mom and brother-in-law while my sister and I took Alyona’s beginner ballet class. I made it through barre before my (at the time) six-month-old had had enough, and then I fled, happy and very sore. Okay NOW I’m jumping in to the classes I took this summer back at home.
CLASS ONE
I signed up for a class titled “beginner ballet” at a third studio location I started going to after I abandoned this blog. The check-in girl directed me to a studio and I walked in and started stretching along with a handful of other ladies. When it was almost class time, a woman poked her head in and asked what class we were there for. When we told her she sighed and told us to come on to this other studio because most people were already there. Me and another woman exchanged panicked looks. “Most people”?? There are like 10 people already in this room! Sure enough, we went across the hall and it was packed. Like I was playing musical chairs, I ran to and fro as each free spot on a barre was taken by someone else. A kind student came to my rescue by pulling out another freestanding barre and rearranging a bit so we shared a barre and had plenty of space. Phew!
Class began and it was immediately apparent this was “beginner” ballet in name only. The teacher announced she was a sub. I actually think I’ve taken class from her before a million years ago. I still remember one of her corrections about not breaking the line of your arm. She is an older woman, and I know from experience if your ballet teacher was born before 1960, you’re going to be hurting. Same thing if your teacher is from a different country (Russia being the most painful country for a teacher to be from, of course).
She had us doing things like grand port de bras en releve, you know, just beginner ballet things.
Despite the advanced choreography, most students in the class were in fact at the beginner level. We had one Real Dancer, I think two or three woman who clearly had many years’ experience, and then me with my decades of dance classes, rusty creaking postpartum joints, and several recent years of zero ballet classes, whatever sort of level that amounted to. Whatever it was was enough that I went in the first group or two for diagonals (“I volunteer as tribute!” mode).
At one point, I missed the explanation of the combination, which turned out to be just doing tour jetes across the floor, and I asked another student what the combination was. The student said, “I don’t even know, she just said follow along with the people who know.” I blurted out, “but I AM the people who know!” which made a couple people laugh.
I left class feeling nothing less than elated. There’s nothing like the shakeup of becoming a parent to make you appreciate time to pursue hobbies more than you ever have (and reading these old posts makes me realize I always appreciated ballet a lot already!). If it’s possible to love ballet more than I did before, I do. I have the ballet bug. I came home determined to keep going on a regular basis, planning to return to the same class the following Monday.
I should mention that the Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) took a full two days to show up and lasted a week. Walking was painful. Breathing was painful. Everything hurt. It was great!!
Unfortunately, a stomach bug then tore through our family, and on that next Monday its victim was my husband. With no childcare, I had to miss the class. Then I promptly traveled to North Carolina to visit family, where I sometimes take classes with Alyona, but she was away visiting Russia. FINALLY I made it back home and my husband basically pushed me out the door to class, bless him.
CLASS TWO
We’d been traveling on Monday, so it was Wednesday when I made it to a class. This class was billed as “absolute beginner.” I do wonder, am I the asshole for attending an “absolute beginner” class when I am not an “absolute beginner,” even if I am extremely out of shape and rusty? Well, I don’t think so, because I cannot even count the times I have gone to “beginner ballet” and found a whole-ass professional ballerina in class with me. And whenever this happens, it’s great! You get to see how things are supposed to be done. You get to watch a beautiful private performance! Not that that’s what the other students got from me in class, HA! But, you know. I know a lot of steps? I know what the steps are theoretically supposed to be?
Well, I can’t say I didn’t find it awkward being the “”””best”””” in the class, but also, the level was just fine for me because I had sweat pouring down my body, I was trembling during adagio—I was barely surviving. Fighting for my life in there.
After barre, I was horrified to look in my bag and realize I left my water bottle at home. I had to run out of class all the way back to the lobby to the water fountain. As I made this journey I thought about how when I first started taking adult beginner ballet classes, it was so long ago that it was before the Era of Water Bottles. Like, I don’t think I owned a water bottle? Nobody did! We’d all line up at the water fountain in the hall between barre and center. We’d swallow our few mouthfuls of water and that would sustain us for the rest of class. I’ve even had teachers that FORBADE trips to the water fountain before barre was over. Can you imagine? Ah, the heady (and thirsty) days of 2003.
Anyway, upon returning to class from my odyssey of water fountain nostalgia, the center exercise had started and I slipped in line at the back of the room. After one run through, the teacher said “now let’s switch lines,” so I headed up to the front of class. Then she didn’t have us switch lines ever again, so I remained front and center for the rest of class. I think (is this conceited of me?) this was her way of putting me in front so people could follow me, without singling me out. As I’ve mentioned in here before, I’m always happy to go to the front in a class of less experienced dancers, because of how I have thick ballet-skin and cannot feel shame or embarrassment in ballet class anymore, after many years of experiencing all varieties of humiliation with a classroom of people watching. And of course it’s ultimately an ego boost to be needed at the front! It makes me realize that all the effort of all the classes I’ve carved out time for throughout my adult life didn’t just disappear into nothing. They remain in my body. They are part of me, they live on deep in my muscle memory.
I feel a little embarrassed about typing out the above paragraph. I cannot stress enough how very fumbling and ungraceful I would appear next to even, say, a fourteen year old semi-serious ballet student. I am not trying to say I am a Real Ballerina (just in my soul!). I’m trying to say I have been taking ballet classes for fun for an ancient amount of time.
The teacher of the class, KT, is also the regular teacher of the Monday class I went to at first, that had the old-school sub. I liked KT’s teaching style a lot, she reminds me of my old favorite, Taylor. I was worried that after loving the sub’s class, I’d take class with the usual teacher and hate it, so I’m glad that’s not the case.
Unbeknownst to me, that Wednesday class was the last of the summer schedule! I am thinking of trying to attend Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the fall, until I graduate myself from the Wednesday class to a more advanced class (I think there’s an option on Thursdays). The slow (so painfully slow) pace of the Wednesday class feels like just what I need to rediscover my strength and technique. We’ll see if two classes a week adds an unsustainable level of chaos to our family or not!
I’ve already signed up for a “pop up” class in between the summer and fall sessions for this Monday. It’s labeled “beginner/intermediate” so probably will be very difficult! I will be bringing my thick skin and lack of shame (and hopefully my water bottle). I’ll report back!
