Third workshop and a milestone birthday
I turned 25 yesterday! It felt amazing and surreal, to really be at an age when people look back to nostalgically, when you feel that anything can happen and the future has so many possibilities. I was on my dating apps in the last few minutes of being 24 years old, waiting for the number to turn 25. Idk why I was on dating apps at that time, probably because it is one of the only apps that has your age written on the profile! And it is a surreal feeling seeing your age being officially presented as 25 on a dating app. I now officially joined the more mature 20 somethings!! It’s an amazing feeling.
Anyways, at night I went to my ballet class! It is a great feeling to be able to lie on the floor of a dance studio and stretch and listen to live piano while staring at the ceiling, which is painted white and has a little sculpture patterns on it, just like every quintessential New York building in Soho/west village. It feels like you are in an indie film. Which is one of the moments when I feel that I am present and living, and one of the reasons why I always feel glad I’ve chosen to do ballet, after a busy day of work, as a way of detoxing, and also as a way of exploring the city, the New York culture, and the New York art scene.
Ok, back to class! So I skipped our second workshop on Monday because a great college friend is visiting from Japan, and also I was sick. Oh well, things happen.
I did went to the teacher after class and asked her what she covered. She said all we did today was covered on the last class. So… lets jump to it!
Posture
The first thing we did was posture. The teacher put her palm at the center of my upper back right below my neck, and asked me to breathe into it. There should be a movement where you feel yourself grow taller like a tree, expanding your shoulders and opening your ribcage as if someone is embracing you from the back to the front, or that a masseuse is pushing your back muscle to the side and then to your front body. Then, you need to exhale from your ribcage, locking up your ribcage so that your body is still aligned. The end gesture sort of looks like a guy flexing his muscle, like this
LOL! but it sort of feels that way, and it should actually look like this (below), even though you feel that you are centered to the front. The ballet teacher said its because humans have a false sense of center. Crazy how ballet is trying to correct that!
Anyhow, posture is the greatest takeaway of this class.
We also did a plié.
For a plie, you need to think your tailbone is going straightly down instead of going behind. That means kind of pushing your pelvic bone to the front while doing a plie.
Tendu from first position to second position
It is interesting to note that since when you move your leg to the direction of your turnout, the foot is gonna be somewhat in the front of your other foot, so you need to twist your heels and make sure the two heels are aligned and the turnout remains. A good video to watch from the Royal Opera House:
Royal Opera House feet positions
Degage
The trick for degage is to also engage your back muscle so that your hip does not move forward when you disengage your feet from the floor. Having the right posture and the right imagery for the right posture like I said in the first paragraph really helps! Here is a video:
Jete
We also did a jete in class, which is to jump. The key to the move is to really use your feet to push the floor, versus using your legs, and make sure your feet still bend in the air. Our teacher asked us to sit on the floor and push our feet against the wall to feel it. It works!
Releve
The key to releve is to releve to your second big toe and make sure your go to the highest you can possibly get, otherwise you risk injuring yourself. I somehow injured my left ball of feet while I was doing a jump in the first series of workshop I attended, and I always felt painful when doing a releve. But when I strive to push myself to releve to the highest, I always find the position more comfortable than releve to a lower point. My feet healed over the past few months, so I no longer feel painful. But the injury was still memorable!
Here is a video:
And thats it! Man we learned so many new moves today!
For the picture of today, I just want to show a sculpture I saw on the street a week ago through the window of a gallery in west village. It is really moving and emotional, and such a great sculpture was just displayed randomly on the side of a street. Just another moment when I feel how lucky I am to be able to live in the city of my dreams. New York is the best!
A sculpture I saw from the window of a gallery in west village.