Going back

[jane s]

Actually, I don't go back for another 3 weeks, but I'm posting this now because after next Wednesday I probably won't be able to post very much (not that I have been lately anyway! ) because we are moving to an open-plan office so I won't be able to get away with it!

 

To be honest, the reason I've been quiet is because I was getting really down about my ballet by the end of last term because it just wasn't happening, so I decided not to find a class over the summer and have a break from it for a while.

 

I thought I'd found a new class at a time I could go to, but it turns out that the time of my existing Saturday class has been changed this term so they would clash (& you have to give a term's notice before quitting. My plan had been to try out the new class first!)

 

Anyway I'm probably the most nervous I've ever been about going back, because I know it will be an exam class (again) which means no corrections & rushing through everything assuming we know all the exercises. Of course, I've forgotten the little I did know after 3 months off!

 

And after the exams - it's the show! Though the class I am in won't be as bad as some in that at least some proper ballet will be done as well as rehearsing. Don't you just hate it when you turn up for a ballet class and you do nothing except show stuff, not even a barre?

 

I hope everyone else is feeling much more positive about the new term than I am - normally I always look forward to the new term, not dread it.

 

I don't think it's just because I'm getting older, though that is part of it. (I've been asking myself a lot more often lately why a 40-year-old woman like me still likes to kid herself she's a teenager!)

 

I think it's because I'm way outside my "comfort zone" in the level of class I'm now in. I'm the kind of person who'd rather be in something like Grade 2 but be the best one in the class, rather than struggle with Intermediate & feel clumsy & inadequate.

 

But at that school there is no other class I can really go to so I'm stuck with it. It's not the exercises themselves that are too hard, it's the speed of the teaching and the fact that very little is broken down, and that the syllabus is so large that I can actually get an exercise right one week, then it doesn't get done again for several classes & I've forgotten it by the next time we do it (but no-one else has, so she doesn't go through it). And also that they've learnt their exam dance and I and a few others actually have to sit it out because we don't know it and there's no time to teach it slowly.

 

I think that was the final straw last term to be honest. Even the teacher looked really guilty about it!

 

Jane

[Poppy]

Anyway I'm probably the most nervous I've ever been about going back, because I know it will be an exam class (again) which means no corrections & rushing through everything assuming we know all the exercises. Of course, I've forgotten the little I did know after 3 months off!

 

I can so understand your frustration at being in an exam class! I wanted to take classes in addition to the one adult class I was in. I was told that I was welcome to take the intermediate class with the teens. Even though I am over 40, I wasn't too bothered. I specifically asked if it was an exam class and was told no, that was a different night. Unfortunately, exam girls were taking the class for the last half of the term in preparation for their upcoming exam. I have not done RAD before and didn't know the syllabus at all. And like you said, exercises aren't broken down and we would go straight through the syllabus.

 

The only thing that made me feel a little better was the poor girl who had obviously just moved up after half term. She looked so pitiful some nights. She and I had no clue what we were doing! We kept to ourselves at the back during all the center work! I wasn't too bad at picking up the barre work but the adage was awful!!

 

We go back week after next. I am sure I won't remember any of the exercises even though we have only been off since the end of July! The exam girls won't be in the class and the girls who are now in the class won't be doing the exam for some time so, hopefully, things will be taken a bit slower.

 

(I've been asking myself a lot more often lately why a 40-year-old woman like me still likes to kid herself she's a teenager!)

 

I do the same thing but, I have been told that I am only as old as my mind lets me be, therefore I am about 14! Now if I could just convince my body of that...

[jane s]

[i do the same thing but, I have been told that I am only as old as my mind lets me be, therefore I am about 14! Now if I could just convince my body of that...

 

LOL!!!

 

Me too!

 

As for the description of the class, yes, that's almost exactly how it is, except we haven't got to the stage of going through the whole syllabus every class yet (which might actually be better!)

 

It's just "today we'll do the third pirouette exercise" or "the second adage" and I'm like "Which one is that again?" so I'm still figuring out which exercise I'm supposed to be trying to remember by the time I have to do it!

 

It would help if it was the "pirouette en dehors/dedans with/without fouette", or whatever, at least that way I'd have a clue!

 

And then there's the allegros we have to reverse. I may just have it figured out forwards, then in the next class we have to do it in reverse instead.

 

Like you, though, apart from a couple of weird exercises I'm pretty much there on the barre now (or at least, I was 3 months ago!)

 

I don't know what's happening after the exam (which will be this term I think) but we'll probably go on to Advanced 1 when I haven't even got anywhere near Intermediate yet!

 

Jane

[kasaba]

We don't start back till the Monday after Labor Day, and I'm afraid I will have forgotten what little I've learned.

 

Moreover, our adult class -- normally rather laissez-faire, not to mention creaky and pudgy -- is merging with the ambitious pre-pointe girls. I'm really apprehensive about this. At age 49 I had no delusions of becoming the next Gelsey Kirkland, but I'm afraid that being relentlessly outperformed will batter my fragile psyche beyond repair. Perhaps I should make a preemptive visit to the WIne Couch . . .

[Guest tutuonmymind]

I start back next week. I am a little excited. I too am pushing forty. I'm 39 1/2. My young niece has filled me in on the importance of halves. Anyway, I am not as flexible as I was when I was 16, but I am actually getting some of it back.

 

I have a wonderful instructor who actually takes the time to correct me. This is good because I know that she cares that I improve. This makes it fun and exciting even when I can't remember the combinations. I can tell that I am improving. I know I won't be auditioning for a company, but I will dance because I enjoy it.