4th adult ballet class (beginner workshop 3) + a blockchain conference and FIRE...

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Some key takeaways:

Releve:

When you releve, it is very easy to tilt your pelvis forward. Therefore, you need to think that there is a string connecting your tailbone to the floor and is actively pulling you into the ground, while you releve.

Passé and pirouette:

When you passé, you need to lift your foot as high as possible so it is at the same level at your knee. Meanwhile, you need to reach for largest height you can achieve, so that you won’t hurt the balls of your foot when you releve.

Pirouette:

After a pirouette, you usually close your elevated leg to the back of your foot. This way, you can change to tendu with your other foot.

Et voila!

I recently discovered the instagram of the amazing Mattia Santini (mattypepeb). His changement movements are so elegant!

P.S. what’s going on with my life…

A blockchain conference:

I recently attended a blockchain conference yesterday. It was organized by one of my coworkers, so I got in for free. Really amazing to hear about all the use cases with the blockchain technology. Blockchain is basically a way to store data in the computer using chains, so it makes it very hard for someone to hack into the system, because changing only one part of the chain would destroy the entire process and automatically unable the transaction. Thus, you are always 100% sure that the money you send will definitely be delivered to the other party. As the money is digitized, you no longer need to save your money in the bank - you can just save it in a block within a computer, and really own your money without worrying the bank being bankrupt. However, the challenge is that without a custodian, you are responsible for storing your own key to the account, and if you lose it, you lose the money as there is no other way to retrieve your password. Current legislation is working on solving this issue, although the current blockchain technology is already used in the government systems internally in China. Also, tracking the transaction flow is another challenge, as the money can be used to fund illegal activities using bitcoins. Very powerful stuff!

On FIRE…

I recently discovered this youtube channel called “Our Rich Journey“. Its about how a couple with 2 kids managed to save 2M dollars and retire early at 39 while being white collar federal workers. It is so far the best channel I’ve ever seen on this matter, and I learned a lot about how to manage my budget, how to invest and creative ways to save money. I can’t believe they managed to save 70% of their income!

In terms of investing, you should focus more on investing ETFs, as the stock market usually gives you an annual return of 7-9%, while actively-managed mutual funds cant always beat the market. If you invest in individual stocks, you should pick the ones with the highest dividends and low P/B ratio, and reinvest the dividend into index funds.

3rd adult ballet class (workshop 2) + working in the U.S. as a non-native English speaker

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Today’s class is very similar to last one, in which we again practiced tendu and plié in great detail.

Some key takeaways:

Extending your calf:

In today’s class, our teacher asked us to try extending our calves and plant our feet deeply into the ground, shifting our weight to the ball of our feet as much as possible. While maintaining our turnout. This posture should be maintained no matter what you do as long as your legs are straightened - tendu, standing, etc.

Tendu:

Thus, while doing tendu with extending your calf, you need to think about firing up your inner thigh all the time. Push your leg out, and then use your inner thigh to do most of the work pulling your leg back, while still extending your calf. Your foot should also be pushing into the floor the whole time while pulling your leg back.

Grand Plié:

While you are doing grand plié, especially if you are putting your weight forward to the balls of your feet, it is especially easy to push your butt backwards in a squat position. An imagery I find helpful is imagine your pelvis as a bowl full of water. When you plié down, shifting your upper body downward, you need to imagine that water in the bowl should not spill to the outside. It is as if you are holding a bowl filled with water with your hands, and you are shifting that bowl up and down. Although this time the two joints connecting your legs and pelvis are holding that bowl, and is shifting that bowl up and down without spilling water. And voila, there you go, a perfect grand plié!

Port de bras:

While you are doing port de bras and bending your back backwards and arm raised, it is notable that the arm should actually be more backward than what is natural for you. It is normally placed around your ear, because your need to show your face while doing the movement.

Basically, the flow of movements should be as followed:

First position - raise your arms to rib cage level while tilting your head to the left while eyes looking at the right hand - transform into second position by expanding the two arms like pushing a door, stop when the arms reached the corners of the square of space that you occupies - keep moving arms to the side, eyes looking at right arm - allongé while looking at your pinkie finger - move your arms down (notice that there is a delay movement starting from shoulder -upper arm - lower arm). You freeze your higher upper arm first while still moving your mid upper arm lower, and then freeze your mid upper arm, keep moving your lower arm lower, and so on. Normally, you would lose the grip on all arm and let it relax and swing inward, and then adjust back to the first/zero position where you keep a space between your armpit and your upper arm. That natural swing is wrong - you need to lift your arm all the time, not even when you transition from allongé to first position!

Yes, ballet is hard!

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Second workshop #2 + balancing your life

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Second workshop, we did similar things to the first 10 minutes of the royal ballet morning class (2018):

Tendu, pique, brush to the front, to the side, to the back. Port de bras.

Some key takeaways:

Tendu

Today I forced myself to turnout more than usual, which actually forced me to do the moves with better posture. My glutes and hamstrings are more strengthened when I did my tendus. Our teacher said you should be firing up your whole leg when doing a tendu.

On doing tendu in fifth position

In the first position, you should always imagine there is a wall/line in between your two heels in a first position, and your heels should trace that wall when doing a tendu.

Ok, now your right heel is aligned with your left toes in a perfect fifth position in a perfect world. The wall/line still hasn’t changed and it is still at your left heel. You need to tendu and point your right foot toes along that line that connects to your left heels.

P.S. Life thoughts this week…

On balancing all aspects of life:

I am recently reading up on investing, as I started buying ETF and am picking which mutual fund to invest in, and I am curious to know where we are heading in terms of the market cycle. These things take up a lot of time - having been guilty of reading newspapers at work for at least 1 hour each day during the past week…oops.

I now kind of envy people who only have one interest and devote their life to only one thing. Like if you hope to be a professional investor, you just read constantly about companies and the market. Or if you are a professional ballerina, you just train all day and devote 100% to dancing. Not me. I have my job to do, I have ballet, and I now need to read up about the economy because I am gonna be an investor of my own money. Each commitment requires 100% of my time and effort if I want to achieve excellence. It’s kind of a struggle to balance all these stuff because I want to be good at all areas but I don’t have enough time and effort. Ugh.

On making changes within an organization:

Previously I had some thoughts on improving our investor targeting service, and our managers finally met with me to hear me out in detail. However, all my ideas were rejected - either because implementing them is more complicated than I thought, or that my managers disagree with the necessity of them. I am now realizing that it is very hard to make changes within a large organization, when there are so many moving parts floating around. Too young, too naive, on my part, which could be a great lesson for something further down the road.