Had my third ballet class. Other than some irritating issues with their billing process (they will not credit me the classes I bought in bulk until I physically receive my class card, which THEY HAVE YET TO MAIL ME, grrrr...) I am really liking it. Here follows some random musing on ballet.
One thing that shocked me was how familiar it all was. The movements, the positions, the words for everything, all felt weirdly natural and intuitive. I mean, of course the subtleties of how you execute the dance and how exactly to use your body requires years of devoted practice and training, and while I'm doing well enough for a beginner it's not like I'm picking it up effortlessly. But the basic gists of the movements all felt very familiar to me, even though I've never had any instruction in it before-- even when I would falter on what to do, when I would see what the right thing to do was, I got a strange feeling of, "Oh, of course that's right." I wonder why that is. Maybe ballet was formulated based on the way the body is inclined to move, so when I do it, I'm doing what my muscles were made to do. Maybe it's because ballet is so technical that the way it's done has a very iconic, recognizable look to it, and having seen ballet and absorbed something of what it's like. While I wouldn't say I've experience a lot, I have had some, and it made a real impression on my mind. Whatever the reason, it's kind of cool how "right" a lot of the steps feel even though this is the first instruction I've ever had in it.
I am also struck by how bodies can be strange and amazing things. Mine always shocked me with the ways I'm flexible and the ways I'm not. When I was in elementary school doing the Presidential Fitness Exam, I scored high enough to pass in every category except the sit-and-reach where you put your legs in front of you and see how far along them you can stretch. Back then my knees were so tight that I couldn't reach as far as a boy, for whom the flexibility standard was lower, let alone be able to touch my toes. It's not nearly so bad now since I'm put some effort into working on it, but still, my knee tendons are weirdly inflexible and prevent me from doing a number of athletic feats without pain that I would probably otherwise be capable of. But my hips, by contrast, are practically the hips of a contortionist. I can effortlessly lay my legs flat on the ground in butterfly stretch, and I can lift my leg just about to shoulder level before my thrice-damned knees start to complain. In ballet class we had to do an exercise where we'd lay one leg on the ballet bar at various angles from the hip and bend the body over it. When my leg was out in front of me, putting the tension on the knee tendons, I could barely bend at all without it hurting. But when my leg was at my side, requiring flexion at the hip, I could practically lay down on it. I should have someone take pictures of me doing this sometime to illustrate it, as the difference is really quite extreme.
With any luck, though, doing ballet will increase my knee flexibility. At the moment doing some of that stuff is quite hard on them. But weirdly enough, as tough as that stretching is to do in the moment, though I expect to be sore after class or the next day, I'm really not. I can feel the effort while I'm doing it, but so far, no residual soreness or discomfort. I guess I should be pleased about that; means no unnecessary pain, and probably indicates I'm not as out of shape as I thought. Still, I hope I'm getting the workout I think I'm getting out of this. Ballet has a reputation for its physical demands that whip the dancer into shape. As I've mentioned, I'm just a little bit chunkier now than I'd like to be, and even think a slight slimming down would make me a better dancer. Truth be told, though, much as I tend to like thin girls, I've never particularly enjoyed the look of the classic ballerina body-- that spare, tightly pulled, almost featureless figure. In extreme cases it suggests to me a weird meshing of an immature, childish body with the strained, pulled aspect of harsh aging. Heh, of course for me that's not going to come even close to happening, so with any luck I'll just get back into the shape I want to be.
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