Ballet update

I thought that I had done a shocking class this evening - not helped by having a migraine-style headache caused my injuring myself from all my hypermobility screening on Saturday.

On the way home T said that she was sometimes worried about correcting me because she didn't know whether a) I wanted it b) how I will take it. I told her I was not in a good space today but that I did really want correction and feedback and that for me "hands on" was the best way forward with me because it helped me to understand things kinesthetically. I said that sometimes verbal corrections were slightly lost on me because I was still processing what she was telling me whilst she had gone on to set the next exercise.

A lot of the correction was levelled at my right hip during grand battement which of course I am now working on with K in physiotherapy. T suggested I now retain my leg at 90 degrees to concentrate on the placement. T said that I was much better on my legs, and was lifted out of them and that my placement was now much better. This was all good to hear. I said that I would like to be able to do double pirouettes, but she said that was all about "tracking".

T and I also talked about hypermobility and she was saying what she had noticed in the hypermobile students she had taught - that their sense of spatial awareness is not very good, that they lack bodily organisation, that their awareness of their body is poor (e.g. in alignment) and that their concentration and focus was not very good. I was pleased she had picked up on that as concentration (or lack thereof) is very much one of my problems! It was a very interesting conversation all round - though T disputed whether anxiety was very true for JHS hypermobile dancers and what evidence was there to support this in dancers - a good point.

The whole conversation was interesting and T has said she will work in a more "hands on" way with me in the future, if that is what I want. Maybe I will see how she feels about giving me a private lesson sometime in the holidays where I can ask her as many questions as I want in my own time.