On the therapy that is ballet and other thoughts

February 14, 2020 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginner2

Hello, happy Valentines! What are you doing to celebrate? I am making the bolognese thats posted on designer Pia Baroncini’s instagram. It’s coming together real lovely ;)

I haven’t been updating for a while, mostly because both weekdays and weekends are very very demanding. I have been trying to take 3 ballet classes a week, read some books along the way, cook a little, learn VBA, watch some performances and hang out in the city!

Below are some thoughts for the recent few weeks

On the therapy that is ballet:

Work wise, things have been very slow lately and I haven’t been super productive, and I’m sometimes frustrated because I’m not learning and growing as fast as I wanted. For example yesterday, I had a very bad day at work, very busy on tight deadlines, but was just doing very manual work. I worked until 6:40pm and went to the ballet dance class on an empty stomach.

However, while I was stretching my body on the floor and listening to the piano, my frustration drove me to use more force while doing the dance moves, which actually made them better. Also, since my day has already been so bad, I was determined to have a good class and make the rest of my night better, so I also put more effort in dancing than usual.

My previous negative energy turned into fuel that made my dances better! Which was then turned into joy from seeing myself do good dance moves and making progress in dancing. Win win win!

From many people’s perspectives, maintaining a hobby as demanding as ballet while working a full time job is taxing. However, it is until then I realized the benefits of myself keep doing that. I now no longer rely only on one pillar, which is my full time job - I now have at least two pillars where I derive my sense of achievement from. If there is a period of time in my full time job where I didn’t see any progress, I can still say I am making a lot of progress in ballet. This doesn’t make me feel so bad more.

I once read that a 70-year-old woman dealt with grief from the death of a beloved one through dancing. It helped her cope with a lot of negative energy and has given her hope. In some way, you do need to cling onto some little hobby that in the short-term seems not so useful, but could be your hope when all your other pillars collapse.

On making progress while you are a little more advanced than an ABSOLUTE beginner:

So… time flies! I have been dancing ballet for half a year. I made some progress! In the first few months while I was constantly updating this blog, I was absorbing all the information on how to make a correct move - how to align your body, etc. Now, I basically know like 70% - 85% of what you should feel while doing the dance moves, and is the time to build enough muscle and execute them.

I find the extra open class I’ve been taking at ballet academy east very helpful - they are very intense - basically you will be doing the equivalent of hundreds of squats at the end of the class, but super helpful in terms of building muscles needed to execute these dance moves the way they should be.

I am always super delighted to find out that the moves I have been wobbly on the previous week are no longer that much of a challenge the week after, thanks to the muscles I’ve built over time. This gives me joy, and is the reason why I am taking a 45 - 50min train ride to upper east side for that class.

et voila, so much for ballet thoughts!

I’ve also learned so much on the theory of all the moves I’ve been learning, I will update them in another blog soon!

So excited to start the next level of ballet - the basic beginner workshop next week!

Best,

Grace

at the end, here is a clip of swan lake. I will be watching swan lake this sunday, super excited :)

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

January 19, 2020 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginner2

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

January 14, 2020 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginner2

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!