Well that's humbling! :)

I've had an awful lot of excitement in my life lately, which is a nice change of pace!  Last week I received a promotion at work, and that means I'll be traveling to our Ohio office for training, and then to Memphis in 3 weeks to meet with my new customers.  This is a blessing and a curse-- I'm thrilled to be promoted but a little irritated that I have to update my wardrobe.  LOL!  Zero of my work clothes from my last job fit me, or even come close to fitting me.  Also a blessing and a curse-- my body has changed drastically but I feel like I'm in the middle of my transformation, so I don't want to buy a whole new wardrobe if I continue changing shape.  Le sigh!  

I'm finally over my plateau.  Most of this season I've only lost about 5lbs, even with an increase in classes.  I've gained a lot of muscle and my body changed shape, so I wasn't too worried.  In the last two weeks though I've started losing lbs again, and I'm currently to my lightest weight since 2008!  I still have extra to lose to get back into the healthy BMI range, but I'm getting there.  I've never felt stronger than I do now!  

In ballet Tuesday my teacher figured out the source of some issues I've been having.  Coming up from grand plie gets increasingly hard for me as I progress through 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th.  I come up from my grand plie with control until about the second rep in 4th position.  Then I hit a wall and muscle fatigue sets in, and I have to pull myself up with the barre or my derriere sticks out and I fall out of alignment.  

She said she was watching during barre and she sees a change (for the better) in my thigh muscling, my quads are strong and defined, but I am weak in the inner thigh area.  In pointe we were doing an exercise at the barre- plie, roll to half pointe, through to full pointe, stand/straighten, plie, roll to half pointe, roll to flat, and straighten.  When I plie in 2nd position on full pointe, despite using all of my effort you can walk up and shake my leg to find my inner thigh is totally loose and wobbly.  For whatever reason my body uses the tops an sides of my legs to control plie, not properly utilizing the inner thigh.  Soooo all of my work at home since then has been inner thigh work.  I'm really glad we've pinpointed the issue, we considered lack of instep & arch strength for rolling through, but this makes much more sense.  Weak inner thigh can contribute to challenges in several different aspects.  

In other news, I follow legendary ballet photographer Gene Schiavone on Facebook.  If you don't follow him, you should!  He does amazing work, really capturing the emotion and his timing is just perfect.  So every Sunday he posts a few amateur photos that followers submit.  I think he started doing it because so many people were sending him pictures!  Anyways, I sent him one image from my photoshoot, and he posted it to his page with other Sunday submissions!  

I'm so honored that he chose mine.  I had great reception of the photo, except one nice lady from France who thinks I'm too big.  That's ok-- I get it, I'm not standard ballet size, and that's OK.  

HERE is his facebook page!  Check him out, he is incredible!  I'm very humbled that he even considered me.  

RB