I have a really bad habit of putting perfection over progress. It gets me nowhere! But in ballet class, it is the one place where I prefer to see small bits of progress at a time. After all, that is how it's done! But for example, one week I will really focus on pointing my feet and then the next week I may add thinking about keeping my shoulders down. Putting all the attention on one body part means maybe letting another part go for a short time until your body learns to adjust itself. But the point is to start training my body to remember where it needs to be in all the different areas. As long as I keep moving my attention to what needs to be fixed, it will all start to come together.
I had a really good class last night. I was telling Abby that I wanted to write something about it on our facebook page or twitter account, but that I just couldn't come up with the words to explain how I was feeling. Because it wasn't that I did extremely well in class; I just felt good.
Our instructor was giving us lots of good corrections and things to think about. I really like it when there's the occasional class with a lot of dialogue back and forth. I always have lots of questions swirling through my head, but not every class feels like the best time to be asking them. Especially when it's a big class and you don't want to hold everyone up. (I've been in that situation the other way around and I get so antsy to move on!) But last night there were just two of us in class. Myself and a woman in her 50s maybe? She is there three nights a week and is so positive and eager to learn. I enjoy it when she's in class. Anyway, I think it worked out well with just the two of us because we both enjoyed asking questions and working through things instead of just going from combination to combination. I really miss that about having Abby as an instructor. I feel like if I'm given something to focus on during a combination (engaging a certain muscle, using my head, opposition, etc.) then I'm much more likely to do better and therefore, progress that much more.
So my point with the progress over perfection thing is not only with ballet class, but with this blog and YouTube channel. I'd like everything for Ballerinas By Night to look nice and be well written and interesting, but sometimes I set my bar so high that I end up quitting before I finish. I need to work that muscle so I can eventually write posts and film videos without it having to require so much energy! I know you all are interested to hear about our experiences so I'd like to start writing a post once a week to share my thoughts on my classes and things I'm working on. Let me know if that sounds interesting at all :)
Hope you all are having a great dancing week!
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Yes! I think sharing classes sounds interesting! I am in a class with mostly teens, as the studio doesn't have an "adult" class and often find that I would like to ask questions, but don't want to hold them up. My instructor is really good about answering questions and taking time with us, but the reason I chose this studio is because the class is 90 minutes and seems to have more structure than the others I tried. It is my first year dancing and I am trying to get all the pointers I can. :)
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