Sound: "Another Man's Vine" by Tom Waits
One of the classes I'm taking here in Moscow is ballet. Unlike most of my female friends, I never took ballet as a child. I took gymnastics, because I was far more interested in hurtling headfirst into various stationary objects (bars, beam, vault, floor) than prancing around in a pretty fluffy tutu. Clearly, I had no understanding of what ballet actually was.
Guys, ballet is really hard.
Let me give you an example of one of our teacher's favorite exercises. Lift your leg as high as you can in front of you. Good. Now hold it for 8 (slow) counts. Good. Now lift it higher. Excellent. Put it down. Now repeat three more times to the front, four times to the side, four time to the back, and four more times to the side because why the heck not? Now do this with your legs perfectly straight, your feet turned out, your arms in a perfect, gorgeous second position, and your head held high. Now do this with a serene expression and without, as my teacher puts it, "fear in your eyes."
Not so easy, right?
Plus there's jumping and combinations (My gosh, I CANNOT remember combinations. At all.) and keeping time with the music, which I think I am unable to do at a genetic level. Almost every class my teacher comes up to me and literally claps out the tempo while yelling "MUSIKA! MUSIKA!" Yes, I know there is musika. I can hear it. I just can't tell you what the time signature is.
Despite all this, I love my ballet class. I still totally suck (and always will suck), but I feel like with every class, I suck a little less.
And I get to wear pink tights and a leotard and pretend that I'm the Swan Queen. So, there's that.
One of the classes I'm taking here in Moscow is ballet. Unlike most of my female friends, I never took ballet as a child. I took gymnastics, because I was far more interested in hurtling headfirst into various stationary objects (bars, beam, vault, floor) than prancing around in a pretty fluffy tutu. Clearly, I had no understanding of what ballet actually was.
Guys, ballet is really hard.
Let me give you an example of one of our teacher's favorite exercises. Lift your leg as high as you can in front of you. Good. Now hold it for 8 (slow) counts. Good. Now lift it higher. Excellent. Put it down. Now repeat three more times to the front, four times to the side, four time to the back, and four more times to the side because why the heck not? Now do this with your legs perfectly straight, your feet turned out, your arms in a perfect, gorgeous second position, and your head held high. Now do this with a serene expression and without, as my teacher puts it, "fear in your eyes."
Not so easy, right?
Plus there's jumping and combinations (My gosh, I CANNOT remember combinations. At all.) and keeping time with the music, which I think I am unable to do at a genetic level. Almost every class my teacher comes up to me and literally claps out the tempo while yelling "MUSIKA! MUSIKA!" Yes, I know there is musika. I can hear it. I just can't tell you what the time signature is.
Despite all this, I love my ballet class. I still totally suck (and always will suck), but I feel like with every class, I suck a little less.
And I get to wear pink tights and a leotard and pretend that I'm the Swan Queen. So, there's that.
No comments:
Post a Comment