Beginner

Let's say that a certain someone watches a lot of shows that center around ballet. That same someone also took three ballet lessons at the age of four. She also really likes the outfits, music, and disciplined work that are associated with ballet.

Obviously, this post is all about my mother. Okay, okay, maybe it's about me.

What can I say? A week ago, I was overcome by an urge to begin taking ballet classes. I called almost every studio in the Plano/Frisco/McKinney area to see if they offer adult beginner ballet classes. Surprisingly, quite a few did. After watching a few classes, I settled on a studio. I purchased all of the necessary attire: a leo, some pink tights, a wrap skirt, and some ballet slippers. All that was left to do was actually go to class.

Tonight, I went to class. I was surprised by how easy it was...
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...
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...jk.

It kicked my booty. Anyone could tell you that I am pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to moving my arms or my legs in any choreographed way. Having to move them at the same time in positions that have names that make absolutely no sense to me is a completely different story. Learning moves pretty slowly would look pretty darn quick compared to how slowly I was picking up on the exercises in class today. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I only really absorbed and semi-correctly executed roughly 40% of the exercises. I couldn't help but chortle as I attempted to battement frappé, tendu, coupé, développé, pas de bourrée, sous sous, and other things that I definitely had to look up on Wikipedia if I wanted to spell them correctly here. Half the time I felt like my legs and feet and arms were spazzing out. Where was I supposed to look? Straight ahead? The mirror? At the person in front of me? At my feet? Don't even get me started on the barre. I may or may not have left a dent in it from holding on to it for dear life. I know, I know. You are probably thinking that I should just engage my core and use a light touch on the barre. I tried. Really, I did. Then, the instructor told us to move into our splits. I LOLed.


So, my first class didn't exactly go as smoothly as I thought it might. Next time, I'll try to focus more and chortle a little less. I'm determined to get this down, so I'm taking as many classes a week as the studio offers. Maybe by the time I move out to Chicago I will be ready for an intermediate class. Or maybe I won't be. No matter what, I'm sticking with ballet.