Pique turns on pointe!

*sheepish wave* 

Hi guys!  It's been too long between posts lately, but I am so overwhelmed with work I just don't find time to write, and I'm always either working, sleeping, or in the studio.  Yeesh.  

I took a full week off from classes last week.  I woke up two Saturdays ago feeling just awful.  I didn't really have a cold and I didn't really have the flu, but I was so out of sorts, weak and exhausted.  I had been having really awful calf cramps in class.  A week later I found these on my calves.  

So basically I overdid it and tore my calf muscles which caused the bruising.  They aren't sore at all though, and the bruises are yellowing and fading.  Super weird!  During class tonight though, I was having issues with cramping in my thighs tonight, hopefully I didn't mess something up.  

Monday's classes after a week off were surprisingly fantastic.  My balance was spot on!  Instead of whipping through double pirouettes in jazz and stumbling to the next step, I turned in correct time with the music and didn't spaz or overturn.  The instructor has us do long varying sequences across the full length of the room.  She calls out the next sequence, you do it, and she just keeps going.  It's a really huge space and we can really get moving!  Some of my favorites are pique turns across the floor.  

Fast forward to tonight, we ended up working on pique turns on pointe!  We only touched on them briefly last year but it was slow going and she let us pick the tempo we were comfortable with.  Tonight we were on tempo with the music, and it was super fun!  The actual turning part is my favorite.  We've been working on other exercises as a build up to eventually doing pirouettes on pointe.  Turning on pointe feels seriously amazing.  

One thing that is super frustrating though, is that I find myself bending my knee slightly as I pique up to the side, more of a step up than a real pique.  I don't have this problem with pique to the front or back, just a tiny bend in my knee to the side.  

I spoke with my teacher about it after class, and it turns out I'm sinking weird into the hip that's in plie to prepare for the pique, more of a lunge to the opposite side than a plie.  It was throwing off my alignment and keeping me from feeling safe to pique up on a truly straight leg.  It's also interesting trying to compensate for hyper-extended knees, if I over extend them I can't be positive that the edge of my platform will stick and not slide out from under me.  After I fixed my plie alignment and straightened my knee like a normal person, it was fine.  Oh well, just another thing to think about!  

In other news, we were doing a pretty simple allegro combination in the regular ballet class that involved a single pirouette from 5th.  We were marking out the combination and I went for the turn.  Although it was only one and I wasn't even thinking about what the turn would look like, it ended up being a textbook perfect single pirouette.  My teacher was like.... THAT'S IT THAT'S IT!  It was perfect and relaxed.  And yet when you think about it too much, it's a disaster.  Funny how that works.  

I'm loving class this year.  My body is changing again but the scale is staying the same right now, I could probably slightly modify my diet and start losing, but I really, really love food.  

Oh, and also, despite feeling sick as hell, I went to see the So You Think You Can Dance Live show!!  It was incredible.  Just freaking amazing!  Here is the only pic I took that actually looks decent.  These costumes were fabulous in person!  

So that's my update.  Things are going really well in all of my classes, things are even clicking (pun intended) in tap.  My crazy work project is almost over, and I'll have more time for writing soon.  

In the meantime, happy dancing!  

RB