Guest dragonfly7 Posted June 9, 2003 Report Share Posted June 9, 2003 I just came form a very frustrating class...I feel SO bad! We had a newcomer who said she'd been off for the past four years and proceeded to do beautiful, clean DOUBLE pirouettes. I wanted to trade feet with her! I've been working so hard for the past 8 months and didn't even manage a decent single. I kept sickling and everything was just so BLAH and when I did sissones I looked like I was an elephant with broken hips (do they even have hips). And all this just before my first BIG performance since I started ballet again - the performance is next month and my confidence is shot. I feel like I'm not good enough to perform. I feel like I'm going to bungle up the steps, fall on my face and end up a powder blue pretzel on the floor. Sorry for the negativity, I just really needed to vent... Quote Link to comment
garnet Posted June 9, 2003 Report Share Posted June 9, 2003 No need to apologize - venting is fine! I think most of us have those days where nothing seems to go right and we leave class feeling like garbage. Sometimes I think that I need to feel that way every once in a while, though, to keep me grounded enough to realize that I still have so much to improve upon. After sitting down and relaxing (having a glass of wine? ) perhaps try to channel some of that frustration into a plan for improvement. Try to figure out why you are having problems with your pirouettes and sissones and try to figure out what you can do to work on them. You have probably come a long way in the last 8 months of hard work... 8 months from now you will probably be doing things you cannot even imagine now. I think there are a couple of ways to react to someone much more advanced coming into a class. I have been in several classes with professional or ex-pro dancers (who all have their own individual reasons, I'm sure, for taking a lower level class) and what I try to do is learn as much from watching their dancing as possible. I remember once watching one girl do the lovliest pique turns I'd ever seen... and something clicked... it was like "that's it... that's what we're all aiming for!". Please try not to let her dancing make you feel bad about yourself... we all come from so many different backgrounds in adult ballet classes that I think it's just healthier to compare ourselves only to ourselves. I hope something I have said helps a little. P.S. You are not going to bungle up the steps, fall on your face, and end up a powder blue pretzel on the floor! If you do, however, you will stand up, smile, keep going, and pretend it was all part of the choreography. Quote Link to comment
Administrators Victoria Leigh Posted June 9, 2003 Administrators Report Share Posted June 9, 2003 Great answer and post, garnet! Really good advice. I especially like the part about channeling the frustration into ideas for improvement. It is something I say a lot to my students when they are wasting energy on being upset or frustrated instead of just getting to work on fixing the problem! Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.