Help! I'm getting worse!

[Guest beckster]

I've been doing ballet consistently for about 3.5 years now, and I am feeling a bit discouraged. At the moment I do three classes a week. One is non-syllabus, one is a very technical syllabus class, and one is a dancey syllabus class. It's a nice mix, but I don't feel like I'm improving. In fact some things, like pirouettes and pose turns, are getting worse. My flexibility is worse too. I don't even seem to be able to use my turnout or my feet the way I used to. Now I know that some other things have improved, like my strength and my brain (I can reverse combinations and steps a lot more easily), but when I look in the mirror it is very disappointing! I know that people hit plateaus in ballet - but surely getting worse can't be good. Please tell me I'm normal and that it will pass!

[Mel Johnson]

This may seem frighteningly unoriginal, but it's normal and it WILL pass. Plateaus are characterized by a feeling of retrogression. It's a sort of morale slingshot that propels you forward again. The trick is that you have to know about it, otherwise you toil away in frustration, sometimes to the point of giving up.

[dido]

I think I'm getting worse too, so at least you're not alone. I'm fairly sure it's delusional, and I am writing a lot in my dance notebook just so in two months (or whenever) I can look back and prove to myself that I wasn't really getting worse, and May X was actually the day that I first fixed the problem of gripping with my quads (or whatever).

 

It is the basics that seem to be going, so very strange. My turn out seems particularly horrendous . But I think that is because I'm working very hard lately and really using the rotation from the top of both hips. Again, my exension is down to about 90 in grand battements and 50 or 60 in anything slower (developes, lent) but I think it's because I'm really trying to not engage the wrong muscles.

 

I fully intend to burst forth like a phoenix from this plateau. Think of how exciting it will be, to wake up one morning, and for no apparent reason be much, much better than we used to! (Always bearing in mind that much much better is a really, really subjective term )

[Kate B]

If I were you (and you can probably guess what I am going to say) I would try a different sort of class for a while (e.g. jazz or contemporary) as well as your ballet classes, or even instead of. You will bring new ways of looking at and approaching ballet exercises, and they might help.

[Guest beckster]

I wonder if maybe I think I'm getting worse because I am gaining more understanding of the right way to do things, but my ability (flexibility, technique, turnout) is lagging behind. That would probably make sense to some extent, but I don't think it explains my complete inability to do a single pirouette when I used to be working on doubles.

 

You are right, dido, it is the basics that have gone wrong. I am really hoping for that phoenix moment, although I suspect if it does happen it will be when no-one but me is noticing!

[Cabriole]

beckster I think that along with the plateau, your standards have been raised. You are simply expecting more of yourself and this is not a bad thing. Taking your example of pirouettes; I am guessing that you are now focusing more on the details of the pirouette (maintaining turnout throughout the body, quality of the releve, etc.) rather than 'just going around', so a single becomes 'cleaner', but a double of that new quality is still elusive. You are a scientist, so you already know the value of 'frustration' in the experimental process

[dido]

Thinking about it as standards being raised is very helpful; I'm going to the morning "Intermediate" class, which a lot of pro's take, and just today I saw a woman do what I'm pretty sure was a quadruple pirouette and land it up (!!!) I'm not sure my pirouettes are any worse than they ever were, but they surely seem so.

 

On the other hand, I seem to remember a thread with the title "Improved Aligment, Lost Turns" somewhere, and I know that because I have finally grasped a sense of how to properly get my weight over one leg, my alignment has completely changed. Now if, in the past, I had been muddling through, slightly off balance, wouldn't I learn to compensate for that? I was working on doubles too, and in the last week I've gone back to just the preparation. I'm sure that in time I'll reap the benefits of that basic correction.

 

(I know, the phoenix moment is going to happen in the deserted corridor of the department where my office is )

[Guest beckster]

Kate, you are going to be proud of me. Or possibly annoyed with me. I decided to grit my teeth and get on with it, so last night I went down to Danceworks and did a beginner ballet, elementary ballet and then a beginner/general contemporary class. Contemporary was wicked! I really enjoyed it - and I seriously thought I would hate it. I liked it so much I even went and told the teacher afterwards how much I had enjoyed it. The ballet classes were less good because they were way too crowded, but it's good to go to a class below your normal level sometimes. Firstly because you can work on getting your alignment and technique right (seriously, a 45-minute barre and we did nothing but tendus en croix), and secondly because you can look at the person in front of you and think about how far you've come since you were a beginner. "I may not be brilliant, but at least my arm in seconde doesn't look like I'm a little teapot any more."

[psavola]

Beckster,

 

"plateaus" definitely can appear from rising standards. When our understanding of what we should be doing increases faster than our ability to actually do it, we are bound to see ourselves as incompetent and slow - we're used to having a certain amount of gap between the two.

 

I've been in the middle of one huge fake plateau since last September, and I see no light ahead. I've felt like I have learned nothing but bad habits during this whole long winter but several people (including a teacher) have told me I've improved quite a bit. So there must have been progress, I just cannot see it.

 

So if you're been working hard for the whole time, I'm fairly sure your plateau migh be a fake one. Poor consolation, I know, but better than none.

 

Päivi

[Kate B]

Becky, I am so proud of you! Let's go together, as soon as I am better.