My Ballet Experience After More Than A Year

Ballet experience

I’m still taking ballet classes – and they’re still kicking my butt.  But I’m loving every minute of my ballet experience!

Now that I’ve been dancing at Kingston School of Dance for more than a year, I finally feel like I’m figuring some of this ballet stuff out.  Now it finally feels more like a workout and less like a mind exercise.  I actually leave there sweaty now – like I’ve actually worked out my muscles!

All the ballet terms finally mean something to my brain, and my legs.  Okay, maybe not all the terms, and definitely not all the time, but it’s way better now.  If you’d like to read about how I felt when I started my ballet journey, here’s my post about it: I’m Taking Ballet Lessons and Loving it!ballet experience

Since I’m more comfortable with all the french terms I now spend my time thinking about my turnout.  I have a terrible turnout and I’m very non-flexible.  Those two things make beautiful, graceful ballet movement a ton of work for me.  Most Monday nights I go home feeling great, mentally, but sore as the dickens by the time I sit down for the 15 minute drive home.

Often my sore body gets worse over the next 48 hours.  Maybe being on the north side of 30 and pushing myself to hold the poses, and point my toes like crazy is not the best idea.  My soreness is compounded some weeks by my next day at work.  Tuesdays are one of my standing days, so that’s a lot of time on my (sore) feet.  Although it also does give me some opportunity to stretch out those sore muscles if the day isn’t too hectic.

I still get very excited when a new person joins the class.  A few weeks ago a young lady started with us.  Of course she’s a dancer from her younger days – she did Highland dancing – but she was brand new to ballet.  It’s so fun for me to see others go through the same super steep learning curve I did.  And I must be doing something right now as a woman who hadn’t seen me dance in 6 months or so told me I had improved immensely!  That was awesome to hear!

Ebon still picks on me a lot.  Just means I still have a lot to learn.  But he also heaps on the praise when I’ve finally figured something out.  That makes me feel good.  The other dancers are awesomely supportive as well, which makes for such a great evening.  I really enjoy my dance class nights.

ballet experienceBeing as busy as we are as a family it really rejuvenates me to go and have this night for myself.  And it’s a great way for me to try to keep my exercise level up.  I talk about my dance class a bit in my post about fitting more exercise in your busy mom life.  It’s a fun way that I get both exercise and me time, with the bonus of other adult conversations thrown in!

Now that we’re in term 2 at dance class we just found out that Emma will be dancing in 4 numbers in the recital end-of-year show.  She’s nervous about it, but I know she’ll do great.  My class doesn’t create a show piece because we’re a drop in class and the people are different each week.  There are quite a few “regulars” but we’ve all been known to miss a class here or there!

I’ve had some readers check in on me about whether I’m still dancing.  That spurred me to write this update about my ballet experience.  So thank you all for taking an interest!  If there’s something specific you’d like to you know about, contact me or leave a comment!

Do you have something in your week that you enjoy as much a I love my ballet experience?  Or do you take a ballet class?  I want to know about my readers, so please share in the comments.

~Jess

 

One Messy Mama
Spread the love

You may also like

18 Comments

  1. You know how proud I am of you, if you don’t well I guess I’m telling you now. I am very proud of you and how much you seem to accomplish each and every day. I am not sure how you juggle it all but you seem to do it and do it well. My hats off to you my very dear friend. I am one of your dearest fans. Keep dancing.

    1. I’m also impressed with myself. It is some crazy hard work! It was a very steep learning curve but now I’m expected to be more smooth and graceful – that’s what I really struggle with! Thanks for the comment. 🙂
      ~Jess

  2. My kids take ballet and jazz. I go to the studio some weekends and teh Mrs. handles all the during the weekday classes. Such structure, poise and grace! I love it! I am so happy that you have this night for you! It is so healthy in so many ways! Thanks for sahring on #globalblogging Ballet sure is global! <3

  3. Oh wow. I never knew grownups could do Ballet classes. What a great form of exercise and time out!! I am afraid I was born with 2 left feet so dancing is one thing I won’t be able to do 🙂 Hope you enjoy every minute! #globalblogging

    1. I’m not all that coordinated myself, but I do enjoy the classes a lot. The work out some weeks is amazing. Other weeks I struggle with it mentally – as in my brain understands what I’m supposed to be doing, but my feet and legs just can’t get it together!
      ~Jess

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.