Inspiration: Passe, Turnout, Back Flexibility, and More...

Improvements and Disappointments

So, class was great last night! I left work early in a bad mood, and took a power nap before waking up in a bad mood to get dressed to head to ballet.

Once the music started and we began our ankle rolls, my foul mood and negative thoughts starting drifting on out the door. By the time we were doing degages, I was absorbed in ballet and ballet only.

I totally nailed it at the barre. I'm getting close to knowing the preparations I've been having trouble with. I kept my head pointed in the right direction. I worked on keeping my arm more in front of me. I ended each exercise cleanly, with my arms more raised than towards my legs, as they had been. I messed up on the counts when doing our adagio leg extensions, but my spotting was dead on and I was able to pick it back up within a beat or two since I've been practicing. I even kept my head in the right direction for most of our echappe sous-sus, including the faster ones. I did everything at the barre so well, I didn't get any pointers or feedback.

The center went pretty well. I'm still having trouble with a few things like, uh, this one movement I can't recall the name to, where I mix up which foot goes in front when we transfer. But my arabesques were much more arabesque-like. My port de bras are getting more graceful. I mostly kept up with the harder footwork we do. Class went quite great!

So what's the disappointment? My horrible turnout, especially in retire. I want it to look perfect.

I want to have pretty turnout.

I want clean lines.

But I'm so far behind, especially on my left leg with it's damn tibial torsion. (As an example: in rond de jambe, my left foot can be pointed almost perfectly outwards… but my knee is always pointed down.) It's so frustrating.

So I will be working on my turnout a whole lot more.

Back to class, breathing while stretching, "lengthening" muscles versus "relaxing" them

I made it to class yesterday- it felt soooo good to be exercising and stretching again. (I sat out the second half, due to the jumps.) Somehow, it seems a break did me some good- it feels like I'm slightly more flexible, but maybe I'm imagining it. But when doing center splits, I'm able to get my elbows down to the ground- though perhaps I'm simply not stretching as wide as normal.

(Although I did read somewhere [in a book preview on Amazon, I think, about ballet/dance anatomy] that ideally, a dancer or such will take two full weeks off each year of not exercising (or maybe only gentle exercising, and it does their bodies a whole lot of good!)(I'm not anywhere near a professional dancer, though, and haven't even been doing ballet for a year!)

So, we have a new adult in class! She's taller than me, 21 years old, and about as flexible as I am! So I feel a little less awkward in class now, but slightly more awkward having another adult who may be watching me. (I'm not sure what I will do when I go to adult-only classes if I move!) That's pretty exciting.

I told my instructor, when my left leg was in retire, but would not get that nice, even line like my right leg is capable of getting, that I wasn't able to get that leg out there. She assumed it was from my accident. I tried to clarify after class, but she didn't catch it, and isn't going to call me out on that leg anymore. I'm kinda relieved- I'm trying with that leg but it is simply not shaped to do what I'd like it to do.

How I want my retire to look!

 Before class when I was stretching, though, I did work on my left leg. I put it up in retire, eased up against a vertical barre... bar, and twisted a bit so the leg got closer to the correct position. I held it like that for a minute or so, and when I stepped away from the barre my line looked much better- but I wasn't able to access that again the next time I tried. So my left leg, it seems, will make a nice line in retire, but it is going to take a lot of stretching- and strengthening- to get it to hold that position. (All of this due to my tibial torsion.)

More leotards came in, including a different style of black that I will actually feel comfortable wearing in class! Still have those photos coming one day!

(I mean, LOOK at this! Amazing turnout, foot pointed so well, that leg high up in retire, clean line, just lovely!

I believe I linked to Tsatsulin's book recently, on stretching. He brings up a fantastic point: don't breathe deep breaths when doing deep stretches. When you do so, you're breathing tension into that muscle (especially if you're focusing on the muscle, visualizing it releasing, etc). Instead, it's better to take short, shallow breaths. I tried this yesterday, and it totally helped me.

A note on that: he also recommends not focusing on lengthening your muscles, tendons, fascia. Instead, you are releasing what it there. That totally makes intuitive sense to me. I've never worked on elongating muscles, even when I've read or heard the term "lengthen your muscles". I don't need them longer. I need them to loosen up- the looser they get, the deeper of a stretch and the more flexible I am.

Brutal class

Tonight's class was kinda brutal. Apparently, my teacher thinks I should be learning faster than I am... and she's probably right. I mentioned this past week that I'm just working on the basics at home- I don't even have all of those down yet! And now I'm getting fussed at for not knowing all of my arabesques, and for getting my feet mixed up in, eh, whatever those other moves are called. (Luckily, only the kids get picked on for terminology... right now.)

I was constantly being called out tonight- my head was facing the wrong way, my retire wasn't up high enough, my arms were too far to my sides, my (left) knee (with the tibial torsion) wasn't pointed out far enough... I wasn't sure if I should mention the tibial torsion or not, so I decided not to yet, because even if it won't turn out as far as we'd both like, I can make it go a little further and keep working on it, and I do need to keep attention on it because of the flaw.

I even got fussed at tonight for not being able to do splits! Some good came from this- she gave me a new way of working on my splits. I'd been keeping the back knee on the ground and the back foot facing down and she told me from now on to keep the knee up and the foot sideways- and it made a big difference, so I will be doing this from now on. Then she said something about getting my head down to the ground when we were doing our front splits facing away from her... I turned my head and raised an eyebrow at her. She said, "well, eventually..." LOL!

I'm bitching a little here, but honestly, I needed all of this to kick my ass up a notch. I was mentally, yet unconsciously, using the excuse "I'm new, so it's okay that I'm behind" to justify not learning faster. (And we got a new girl in tonight, so I'm not the new one anymore.)

After class, I got my little redheaded friend to help me on a couple of things. I've now got several new things (even just from figuring them out in tonight's class) I am confident I can practice at home. I'm exhausted, though. I want to get up and work on them all, but I'm so tired. I will at least work on my splits, though, and work on the other stuff tomorrow. There just isn't enough time in the week!!

One other thing: my toes are starting to hurt. And I'm starting to realize how faaarrrrrr I have to go before my ankles and feet will ever be ready for pointe work. My big toes hurt because it seems we're always dragging them on the ground. My ankles started hurting a bunch and getting weak when we were working on echappe sous-sus. (Yeah, I've nearly got that one down! At barre and in center!)We didn't even do that many... ballerinas are insane!!

Today: Stretching & Strengthening

I have done so little lately in terms of strengthening that I can totally tell. Grande plies are a bitch right now- I struggle with them again. I'm starting back with randomly doing pliés, relevés, and uh, I don't know if it's a ballet move but it's a développé derrière skipping the attitude positions- so like a back leg raise to target my glutes, basically. (I'm a bit afraid that doing as many of these as I like to do may actually hinder my développé derrières due to building so much muscle, and due to the fact that I actually do it a little outwards instead of straight back because it seems to work my glutes more, but the payoff is proving to be a much firmer ass, and so it's worth it to me to work on these. I do need to work more on keeping my extended leg straight, as that doesn't come naturally in that position.)

Basically, since I've started taking actual classes, my work outside of class has dwindled. I do try to arrive an hour early to stretch before class, and sometimes to have some of the girls help me out with some movements, and I also try to stay at least 20-30 minutes after class stretching some, but otherwise I haven't been doing as much as I was, and that needs to change.

I have stopped working the classes I was doing online. I really want to focus on strength and stretching right now- and working on learning the movements in class as quickly as I can, because those are what I want to be practicing at home. I almost have them down to where I will feel comfortable practicing at home, but I'm not quite there yet: I'm afraid of practicing and getting a movement down well, only to be in class and realize I've been doing it wrong. But I am picking things up pretty well, and that will soon be an option for me.

I'm focusing a lot on stretching right now, after doing the warmup I usually do (which I have mostly memorized, so it's also what I do when I first get to the studio and get changed from work clothes). I'm quit excited because even though two of my splits are still embarrassingly high, one of them, my left side split, is actually making noticeable progress! I'm not to the ground yet, and am still inches away from it, but less than a foot, I think, and that's a big difference for me!

So yep, back to it!

Oh, edit! I just wanted to say that when I first started, leg raises/releves were kinda difficult for me- I mean, well, they are hard.  When I first started, I would do about 12-15 one-legged relevés (usually with the other leg in sur le cou-de-pied or retiré) and 30 relevés in a set. Now I'm up to somewhere like 60-100 relevés and I've doubled my one-legged retirés, doing 25-30+ each set. (And I guess I've been doing enough lately, because even with some weakening, I am still able to do these with some ease.)

Tonight

My turnout seems to be better with the tape on my knee. I don't think I'm imagining it- when I turnout, my left knee is more over the toes than in front of it, and that wasn't the case before. My turnout in retiré is maybe a little better on the left- I still have a ways to go. But I'm definitely able to feel the rotation of my knee just from the tape, and I'm also able to use my muscles in that leg to rotate my knee further into a "straight" position. (It's not taped to the max it could be.)

The tape did get a little bothersome today- I had to pull it up a bit in some spots where the skin was just pulling too much. I took an NSAID to reduce any possible swelling. I was a little more careful on that leg today, especially up and down steps. I didn't want to use it fully in this new position. I am going to take a break either tonight or tomorrow night, and possibly put ice on it because I am worried about swelling. (I can't really tell if it's actually swelling or if I'm just imagining it because I know something's different.) There's a little aching on the knee, but it's not pain. I'm paying really close attention to it.

I was teaching myself glissades and getting the hang of it. A bit too much jumping for my knee tonight, though. Another time. I just wanted to try something new.

Tibial torsion's effect on ballet

So I finally got around to taking some decent photos last night. AND I taped my knees. First, here is a side-by-side photo. (My left leg is on the right.) On the left is how my legs, especially knees, look when my feet are parallel and touching. (My right knee has some tibial torsion as well, but it's not as bad as my left and it doesn't affect my ballet attempts too much.) On the right photo you can see that I can laterally move my knees out using only the muscles of my legs, which rotates the kneecap and tibia.

Tibial torsion is exaggerated on my left knee (left leg is on the right side). Leg muscles can pull the kneecap and tibia into a more straightened position. Note the location of the "V" shaped shadow on my left knee in each photo.

Here are my legs when I have them lying flat on the ground. On the left my feet are kept touching in parallel. On the right, my kneecaps are pointed  straight up. Both feet lean outwards, but my left foot's rotation is far more pronounced.

On the right photo, my ankles are held parallel. Kneecap on my left leg is exaggeratedly pointed inwards. On the left photo my kneecaps are held straight up. Both ankles point outwards, but it's definitely more noticeable on the left.

I want to show you now exactly why this sucks so bad for me in regards to ballet, and why I've been obsessing over it so much. Here is what my legs look like in retiré. On the left photo my left leg is the standing leg and my right leg is in retiré. On the right, I've horizontally flipped the photo so you can compare them side by side. (In the right photo, it's my left leg in retiré.)

Legs held in retiré. (Left photo is right leg in retiré. Right photo is left leg held in retiré.) Notice the difference in line and aplomb.

See how much forward my left knee is? That is not pretty in terms of ballet. This is also how my legs look when I plié: my right knee is aligned quite well over my right foot, but my left knee is very forward of my left foot (in spite of the fact that both legs have similar turnout). (Actually, my left leg LOOKS like it has even better turnout than my right because of the extra rotation in the ankle- but the location of the knee, especially in plié, tells a different story.)

Now that I look at these photos for the first time, it also looks like I am holding my body quite differently in each photo. I had something I was holding onto for balance, and it was definitely harder to lift my left leg up, but it seems my standing right leg is pushed more forward and I am leaning more forward. This may just be because I had a ten second timer to get myself into position, and it was more difficult to do with the left leg going up, but definitely something I'm going to pay more attention to now. (My knee is also blocking my backside more in the left photo, so it could just be that.)

Anyway, I got to taping last night and took photos of that as well, but I'll get to that post later. (I will say that right now, my left knee looks more like my right knee, for what that's worth!)