At last, we come to the end. Wonderful work this quarter! I saw improvement on many levels from everyone. I'd like to you to take a moment and tell me how you have improved in your ballet technique. What steps have you really integrated and what ideas will you work on in the future? Take a moment and write a couple of paragraphs on what you've learned.
Congratulations!
Louis
20 comments:
first comment! well, sadly I did not improve as much as I would have liked this quarter, but at least I kept dancing as much as I could. I missed way too many classes, which is probably why I ended up hurting myself. Definitely a lesson to remember! This is the most improv I have ever done in a class and I kind of got used to doing funny spur of the moments that I would feel kind of shy about doing normally. Dance class really helps you get comfortable with that kind of thing, but this class really hauled it out of me.
As far as ballet technique goes, I have had a lot of classes so nothing specific in the repertoire was new to me (i.e. I know what I'm supposed to do, doing it is another story!). But we certainly did many things I'd never done before, from the rolling spheres to the ho-ho-ho-ho ho-ho-ho-ho (which I think might have been my favorite strange moment in class). Also, doing exercises with partners was very nice as it taught us to adapt and interact with another person.
I must say that the least favorite part of the class was how hot it was in there. It seemed like the heat was always on when I walked in the door. At least you didn't get that pop-pop-pop I've heard in previous cold ballet studios, but I think it might have helped my energy level a bit to have it cooler. All in all, wonderful class, only real complaint is how much of it I missed.
Nicole Boutillier:
First off, I want to say thank you Louis. I really enjoyed this class and I learned so much. As I said before, I've learned all these steps before, but I never understand the intricate details about how to do them, and now I do. I feel like that alone has made me soo much better. I, too, missed many classes, and I regret that as well : ( because I always looked forward to Ballet class this quarter, it was my one release and my one class where I could let go, and do what felt natural to me.
Ok, sorry, enough of my rant. I have always struggled with my "corset", lol, or rather letting my belly go. I understood, for the first time where my body should be and what proper placement was, in your class. I feel like this was a huge break through and it makes me so happy. However, it is a constant struggle for me to remember to stay "lengthened and lifted." It is a concept that leaves me when I'm lazy. But it is one thing that I will always be conscious of.
In our class I was thankful to have the opportunity to disect steps and combinations and really work on finding the beauty and presentation in the simple things.
I learned that I have soo much to still work on. There is NEVER ENOUGH TIME!!! But I learned some things about myself, that I need to watch. Like the fact that I have problems coordinating my legs and arms, and often forget my arms. I also learned that I tend to clench my fist when I jump (thanks Kris) and that I need to MOVE!! There are so many little things that I learned, and I am so thankful.
Overall, I am pretty happy with my improvement. I did double pirouettes for the first time in my life, consistently, in your class!! And I also jumped the highest I have ever jumped in my life!! : ) And I feel so much more prepared to face my auditions because I learned to quickly pick up combinations. So thank you!! There is so much I could say, but I'm going to leave it there!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Oh, and that picture is AMAZING!!! Sooo Beautiful, and that is why I love ballet. One day I want to do that!!! : )
What haven't I learned this quarter?
I feel way more balanced in my daily life and strong. The palates abdominal work is something I have actually picked up and started doing on my own in my room, it is a great way to remind myself of my posture and feel my corset just for everyday use. My legs and arms feel stronger and I feel in more control of them. Honestly, I never expected to get such an everyday, overall sensation from my ballet experience, but I did and I am thankful for it.
I've also learned to let myself go. My previous ballet classes have been rather tradition in that we get an exercise and repeat. When we went out of the box in this class, it really scared me, but now I feel free with the class and confident(ish). Even in the last couple of weeks, with all the improv, has really expanded my mind with what dance and movement can be.
My technique is something I felt improved, mentally and physically. I tried to just absorb, absorb, absorb everything I was told, and I felt I got so much great help from both you, Louis, and my peers, shout out to Rachel and Vicka. Not only do I now just say the steps to myself but I try and feel them with my movements, pushing away the floor, extending my leg out, stretching my spine. Now, at the end of this quarter, I feel like most of the exercise are stretching and muscle control exercises and they all feel great!
I can't say enough good things about this class or you Louis. As many days as I just wanted to crawl into bed and take a nap instead of go dance for two hours, I am so happy I made the choice to go. I feel healthier, better suited to go practice my ballet by myself and make up my own combos, and more confident in my abilities as a dancer. Thank you Louis and everyone in the class for making this one of the most memorable college experiences I have had yet!
Hello Louis!
Thank you so much for teaching your class the way you taught. I really enjoyed your class. It was different from how I imagined the class to be. It definitely challenged me a lot and pushed me to take another step. I felt like I improved on my structure of being straight in my alignment and having the vertical as I get the positions. I felt like this class helped me to clean up my messy and bad habits. I learned how to control my body as I danced ballet. Learning new terms and movements in the class definitely took me up to another level. I found more of the beauty of ballet through this class and found more interest in it! Now I feel more confident in ballet and my movements. I learned a lot of detailed things from this class, such as port de bra, tendu a la second(how it should be diagonal, not side), keeping my hip straight, not turning out too much for first position and so much more! I believe as I was learning all these, I cleaned up my postures and movements and definitely improved on them. So thank you for helping me to gain more confidence in ballet and improving so much on them. I will keep dancing. :)
This ballet class was waaaay different from the last one I took. That teacher was very focused on technique and would hammer us until we got things right and gave us a lot of things to be mindful of and work on in the future. This class was a lot more relaxed, and seemed to be more about feeling the movements and being a part of ballet.
I appreciated the idea of integrating random movements in the middle or routines in order to help us learn how to snap back into ballet, to learn without thinking where positions were and how to be efficient and graceful in getting into them.
Other than that, I don't feel like I improved as much as I hoped to. I had to sit out for a good part of the quarter due to a foot injury that probably came from the class. I was so sad! I had been looking forward to this class for months and then because of it I couldn't dance.
I did learn how to watch ballet though! Before I didn't really know what to look at and how to focus on what people were doing, but I think I have better attention to detail and appreciation than what I had before.
The class had a wonderful atmosphere which made it really a lot of fun. It was an interesting quarter. Thanks!
This was the first class I have ever taken that was solely devoted to ballet, so everything was a new experience. It was so much fun to try a new form of dance, and I really enjoyed it! I hope to take ballet again in the future. I really enjoyed our work and combinations at the bar as it really helped me to focus on form. Undoubtedly, the most difficult part of ballet for me was the jumps, so that is definitely something I would like to work on. I really enjoyed the adagio combinations we did because they take a lot of strength and balance. The faster combinations were also fun becuase they presented a real challenge in learning and staying up with the steps. Thank you for a wonderful class, Louis!
What I learned most in this class was when I looked at the big picture of dance in my life at present and what it has been in the past and I ask myself the holy grail question, "What do I want from dance?" The answers are from a prospective of both "if i can do that now", and "i want to do that in the future."
I want to express my emotion through movement while I am in class. Putting in energy that would go to festering emotions. I am still getting stuck in the state of "I have to dance a certain way." I needed to get out of being in front because I was always in front. Its a habitual place that comforting but its leads me into a rut that I can't progress from.
I want to come out feeling better than I come in- The amount of work I do should satisfy me when I leave. I tried my best and exhausted my body. I wan to look forward to dance in the knowledge that it can make me feel better if I want it to, and if I let it.
I want to feel a deep, rooted connection to who I am, to the floor through my whole core, and to the earth.
Dance in the past has been about looking good and pretty, being better than every one else, and feeling that there is something wrong with me that if I try hard enough I can fix or control. Dance has been a self-help, 12 step, book. I want to dance to become a way of life, an instigator in releasing flow of energy.
I want to stop concern for image. What I look like when I dance is not what I want to pay attention to. I want to focus less on "myself" and more on what I am doing.
Since taking this class at the U, where I get a grade and credit for my effort and attendance, i have felt a call of attention to incorrect placement if resentment of my teachers. I always had other events and things in my life (school, work, commuting time, lack of motivation, lack of creativity) that I felt was not important to my teachers. I thought that they didn't care about me and once I resented them for that I wasn't committed to dance as I should have been. I wanted to please my teachers so that they would like me and need me, but I didn't and still haven't committed myself to dance. It was a thing I did because i "had" to. I made the choice but felt I didn't have a choice. That is wrong. I do have a choice.
I want to commit to dance, I want to do it, and want to love it. In Louis' class I finally was able to figure this stuff out. I think that that happened because of his unique take on ballet and how it can be approached in a light and fun way. I feel like I can go into any dance class and no matter the level or difficulty I may have I can start to relearn a better and happier way to be a dancer.
This quarter has been a lot of things for me. Sitting here, now, and looking back at all of it though, I think that amazing is the word that brings it all together. I think that coming into this class having already taken a "Louis style" ballet class may have made the transition, if that's what you want to call it, a little bit easier for me. I'm not saying that I loved every minute of it - there are definitely still some things about "traditional" ballet classes that really steal my heart, but as a whole I feel like all of my experiences with Louis have helped me develop as a dancer in ways that I never could have otherwise.
I love dancing. I really do. There's something about the combination of complexity and strength and emotion and sweat and beauty of it all that just has me hooked. I've known that for a while now, but I didn't know what that all meant.
It's about being the best dancer that I can be. For me. I know that I have all of these feelings, and I can choose to show it through my dancing for everyone to see, or use it just for me when I need that reassurance.
I've learned that dance is a journey. I take a journey when I find my proper alignment, when I balance in sous sous, and when I reach out into arabesque.. and then a different kind of journey when I mess up or am having difficulty with something that I feel like shouldn't be so hard. My dance journeys will probably never put me on a stage in front of thousands of people. I think I'm okay with that. The place that they do always take me, no matter what, is into myself as a living, breathing, creative being. It sounds kind of dumb, but I feel like we tend not to acknowledge that as often as we should. Or really take in the weight of it.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I focused really hard the past couple of months on changing my attitude towards dance. That also came from something Louis said.. some story about how he realized that if he was really going to excel as a dancer he needed to do more than just what was expected. For me it was doing what I knew I needed to do, and being accountable to myself.
I think at this point we could all sit back and say "I know what a tendu is." I also think there is a lot more to a tendu than any of us could ever know. I don't think that it's anyone's responsibility to teach me all of those things. It's up to me to dance the hell out of a tendu and see what it turns into.
There are definitely technical things that I have picked up in this class as well. I think some things get integrated subconciously and some things just don't quite happen no matter how hard I try. I'm not going to name any specifics for a couple of reasons.. one because sometimes it's hard to say exactly where things actually come from, and also because those weren't the biggest or most important (to me) improvements in my dancing that happened this quarter.
Thanks a lot, Louis.
I never thought I would learn so much from a ballet class. I’m relatively new to ballet and there is a lot I want to work on, most specifically port de bras. On the other hand I want to acknowledge that I learned a lot about ballet forms and placement in this class. I learned some technique and positions and I feel like I’m physically stronger than when I first walked into class.
I also learned to dance with other people, to give and take with dance, to learn from what others were doing right and what they were doing wrong. I worked on asking for help when I needed it and giving help when I thought I could.
In addition, there was always the internal work. I was learning to visualize my body in a new way (rolling spheres). I focused on my core (pilates) and my head lifting up (strings). Then there was the other type of internal work, the more emotional work. I thought about what it was to express myself through movement. I learned that dance is so transparent. I’m typically more of a guarded person so I still need to work opening myself up letting my guard down so that more of my spirit can come out in my dancing.
I want to thank Louis for helping create a nurturing dance environment and for inspiring and motivating us to be better versions of ourselves.
First of all, THANK YOU again, Louis, for the wonderful class. All my friends already know how great you are, because I always keep talking about my amazing ballet class, and now I want you to know that as well! I can truly say this class has changed who I am as a dancer. I learned ballet, but what's more important, I learned so much about dance in general, and especially about dance as it relates to my life and my body. I have had times when I danced and worked out a lot, so I was expecting the happier and healthier feeling an intensive dance class gave me, but I also got so much more. I'm listening to my body in a totally different way when I am dancing and stretching, thanks to this class.
I love learning from the inside, by which I mean, that you think of what you do instead of just trying to copy and do it. The idea that you don't just try to lift up your spine, you think of your spine and let it relax and lengthen, or you think about your body as rolling spheres, or whatever works for you, but it starts from the inside before it shows on the outside, and that makes you understand what your body is doing and lets dance become a part of you. I can only say that right now dance is a part of me more than ever, and I am grateful of that to this class. I also think that having the crazy relaxing bits in between traditional exercises is not only great, but it has been one of the most important ways of learning dance that I have ever experienced.
I did learn a lot of technique, which is why I took the class in the first place. Above all I understood the importance of LENGTHENING, which makes dancing feel and hopefully look great. I pay attention to where my hips are pointing, I have better control over my “corset” which supports my whole body, my port de bras are stronger, and even my balance is better though there is still a lot to work on. I gained confidence in basic steps like tombe-pas de bourree, balancé and glissade. I grasped the idea of contre temps, though connecting the preparation steps to it is still something I'm working on. I no longer hate ballet jumps like saute and assemble and have started to think there is a realistic possibility of learning them one day.
One of the most important things is that all this ballet technique is connected in my mind in a new way, and not just separate pieces that you tie together for a combination. When I'm learning one step it's easier than before to make use of something I learned doing another step or from an excercise at the bar.
I am sad that this dance class is over. At the same time I'm also excited to move on because this class has broadened my horizons and given me a great foundation technically and mentally to continue learning dance, and I'm looking forward to applying all that is has given to me!
First of all, I'd like to say thank you to Louis and all of the classmates. As I told you, this is my first ballet experience. Everything was new and challenging. At the beginning of this quarter, to be honest, I thought about dropping this class because it was much more difficult than I expected to dance ballet. However, I completed this class with other students! and I was very happy to perform with them on Friday and proud of myself now.
If I think about my improvements from this class, it will be memorizing steps and my posture. As a beginner, the most difficult thing is remembering steps. The process of remembering steps is completely different from how we remember for other classes such as history and anatomy. Thus, I was hoping you to dance with us, especially for the bar lessons. However, because you let us to think about steps and dance by ourselves, I could always think about next steps and imagine myself dancing. Now I know WHY you wanted us to dance by ourselves. When we were practicing for the show, I could help other students by showing the steps, which was a big improvement for me. I think that now I know that to memorize steps is not logical thing.
In terms of the ballet technique, I cannot say specific things, but I think I improved my posture to show my physical strength and length. Since we learned unique methods in order to feel our body composition, I have been feeling how my arms, legs, and head move. Thus, during dancing, I focused on how my arms and legs should move. Now I believe that when I am dancing, I am more stable and show my strength.
On Friday, when we were having show, I saw everyone dancing very enjoyable. When I saw it, I felt so happy to be in this such a wonderful class.
Thank you, Louis!
I decided to continue ballet! There are many more things I'd like to learn and improve in order to dance like you and Vika!
You are the best! (by your red T-shirt)
I haven't taken a dance class since I was eleven so coming in I was extremely nervous, especially since I haven't taken ballet since I was seven. Taking this class as made me realize how much I miss dancing on a regular basis. The reason why I took dance was two reasons. One was that I average going to the gym somewhere around 3 times a quarter so I took it as an opportunity to trying and being more consistent in working out. I also took it as a chance to get back into something that I loved so much as a child and that would be a completely different college experience.
One of my favorite aspects of class was when Louis incorporated pilates and yoga into dance. It made the class more relaxed and helped get me out of the mind set of all all ballet and this move comes next and my arms have to be like this and more into the mind set of the mind-body connection.
I will admit that I completely expected a traditional ballet class with someone playing classical music on the piano. On the first day of class when I found out that it wasn't going to be a traditional I was concerned and confused. However the class turned out to be one of the greatest classes I have ever taken in college. I sincerely hope that I will be able to take another Louis class in the spring before he graduates and leaves us.
It's hard to describe how far I feel I have come from my beginning days in ballet class, but I will try my best. Since my only experience with ballet was Dance 101 and the few exercises my modern classes have used, everything I learned was new to me and helped me to grow. I used to feel like having my arms and legs in ballet form was wrong and unnatural, but now I consider it just another form for my body. It feels like it's a graceful, extended position like ballet is supposed to be. That feeling combined with all of the technique I have learned this quarter has also changed how I feel about ballet as well. I used to hate going to class every day because I would get stressed out and feel incapable when I struggled with the movements. Now I still don't always enjoy dancing ballet, but some days I find that the movements are exactly what I need to express myself, and ballet form fits me perfectly. At the beginning of the quarter I never thought I would appreciate ballet, but now I do.
In terms of technique, I now know what some of those French words mean (although I still can't pronounce them) and my ballet vocabulary has multiplied by tenfold, from only knowing the ballet feet positions and a few leg movements to what we have learned over the course of this quarter.
The ideas I will work on in the future are involving myself more in my movement, so that ballet becomes more and more a form of expression for me, so that I can get the same enjoyment out of it that I do in modern. I also hope that by involving myself so much in my movement my movement will improve because of my focus, so that my ballet will look better and not just feel better. I will also work on treating ballet as only a form of dance, so that I can take from it what I want without letting it become the "best" dance to me.
After reflecting, I feel I have had subtle improvements that would manifest differently for each class or session of classes. Certain days, I felt I would have my corset on, while others I felt like my center was relaxed. What I have learned and the areas I will continue to improve in, involve structure, emotion and finding something in between.
Regarding structure, I feel like the Skinner spheres and the corset are ideas I've been able to integrate ...some of the time. Also, I REALLY liked the idea of ballet positions as dynamic. For example, when balancing, thinking of my energy as radiating above me and beyond, it put a whole new twist on balancing. I still need to work on my energy flow, but it has definitely changed my thinking. Similarly, I felt like my head sphere started to appear toward the end of the quarter, across the floor. Also, on certain days, I totally had a corset on while at the bar, and other days I left it at home. In the future, I really want to work on my energy flow, lengthening my spine and using ALL the music... so I can be a ..."luscious" dancer. hee hee.
Striving to be a luscious dancer also involves using emotion. I like the idea of dancing to someone or an audience, like doing a port de bra to someone. It's more than just doing positions but its movement with feeling and meaning, movement that looks better because you can almost feel what the dancer is feeling at times. Certain days, when the lights were off and Ariana was singing, I felt like my movement was beautiful at times because I was dancing to the feeling of the music. Dancing to the feeling of the music also made me use ALL of the music, ha .. funny how that works. I have also realized that being happy while dancing is very important! It was so easy to be happy during the contra dance (I LOVED IT). Being happy in the moment is essential because... 1. it makes me feel happy and 2. it allows my energy to shine... basically its uplifting all around. Oh, in the future, I plan to try to feel the music much more, feel the movement, and be happy and not worry about "am I doing it correctly" the entire time.
Overall what I feel is the most important, is attempting to find a middle ground between structure and emotion. It is when this middle ground is found, that I can shine and be the captivating dancer, the luscious dancer. For example, on the wednesday of the ballet improv class, I really liked the idea of releasing/and being free during movement and then switching back to being strong and pulling it all together. I would really like to use the combination of being free and being lengthened and strong in future choreography.
This quarter was great, I've learned many novel concepts, added other facets to my previous understanding and made good memories. Thank you, Louis.
First of all, this was a great class and I am really glad that I was able to be a part of such a run dance community. As far as things I felt that I was able to integrate into my dancing, one was I finaling starting to think about my arms when I danced whereas before I just hoped they looked ok and really just focused on what my feet where doing. After focusing on our arms for a week I realized that they were just as important as far as looking graceful and that I should start thinking about them more often. I also really enjoyed when we broke away from the bar and skipped or did something that involved running around the room because it helped me move farther when moved across the floor later in class. All in all, I am very pleased with how much I improved this quarter and can’t wait till I have another chance to take ballet.
What an experience this class has been for me! Thinking about it, I realize that this is my first REAL ballet class, meaning it lasts for a substantial amount of time for several times a week for several weeks. I'm walking away from this class with a more complete knowledge of ballet.
I'm one for analogies and one just came to mind. When I learned ballet before, in partnering classes and in a half-hearted beginning ballet class, pieces of ballet were taught to me as needed. The choreographer thought a tour jetee would look nice, so I was taught a tour jete, regardless of how far beyond my skill level it was to do it CORRECTLY. The choreographer wanted waltz turns, so I learned to mimic the basic movements behind the girl with whom I was dancing so as not to draw attention to myself. This sounds a little bitter, but really I was enjoying it and developing the beginning of a great love for dance.
Anyway, now for the actual analogy - it was like trying to build a house, but being being handed random pieces in a random order. It was like starting with the ceiling and adding the floor on top of it, then maybe adding a wall or two, then the roof, maybe the foundation next, etc. The result was a haphazard shanty that makes me imagine the lost boy's treehouse in Peter Pan - useful, and attractive in it's own homey, cute sort of way, but definitely no place that you would find Louis XIV showing off his best shoes.
A couple of months ago, though, I tore down the treehouse and tried to start over. I say tried, because I often found myself digging through the pile and pulling out old pieces of shanty and trying them out as part of the new foundation I had started rebuilding. Some of the things still fit, and others needed to stay in the pile.
Now, I feel like I have a solid foundation upon which I can build any sort of magnificent structure that I'm willing to put the effort into building.
I think even more than that, though, and what I'm even more thankful to you, Louis, for than just the technique is knowing that whatever I decide to build doesn't have to look like anything in particular. I mean, I had this notion of what ballet was when I first came into the class, and you helped me to realize that it could be so many more things. You always had ... unique ... ways of livening up class and reminding me that I was supposed to be enjoying what I was doing.
That's one thing that I'll definitely hold on to after this class. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person and I always try to remember to enjoy life as it happens. I hadn't applied that lesson to dancing yet, and I think I would have regretted it greatly if I hadn't made the connection until much later.
So, thank you, Louis, for everything.
before I get into my long essay, I would like to take the time and say "thank you so much" for everything. You have totally challenge my perception of ballet (pretty hot people running around with a tight tutte and tights).
Ballet is an incorporation of body and mind. These steps such as the porte bras, the sicconsse, the plie, the glissade and so forth are designed specifically to strengthen the body and mind.
Ballet is broken into different body parts: the head, the torso, the legs and the hands. Each works differently but with the same purpose: to make ballet flow well between each movement and that each techinque is a "vogue" front page cover shoot.
I have had a blast time in your classroom. In the future, I will definetely works on the techinque of revovling sphere. These spheres fuctioned together so that we don't injured ourselves as well as build up strength.
To be totally honest, I have never been in a ballet class that is so informative. Keep up the great work mister.
Oscar Milano MAI
Peace! I'm out!
first off this is probably too late 9i didn't realize there was one last comment, sorry). However i wanted to say I really enjoyed this class so THANKS Louis.
I learned quite a bit and though my improvement still has a long way to go, i feel much more comfortable, especially with porte bras and also in remembering combinations. Also i really appreciated the visualization of the spinning balls and my posture is much better when I keep that image in mind.
I also learned not to forget that I am dancing, which can be strangely easy to do in ballet as there is so much detail to keep track of that it is easy to obsess with technicality and forget the emotion part. I think things like the Renaissance parading and noises, etc. really helped to break out of that obsession, that and it made class a lot more fun.
As for what I will work on in the future? Well all of it, the very basics can always be improved upon and then of course there are fun new steps to learn. I hope the next class we get to do more turns as I especially like those.
First of all, thank you, Louis, for teaching us, and cultivating an enviornment in which we could learn to love to dance. I know that you teach out of a love for dance, and I learn dance from you in the way that you teach it.
I have improved so much since the beginning of the quarter. Since I had never taken a formal ballet lesson before, I was never used to standing, watching, memorizing, and then doing without having gone over anything 10 times. I was so frustrated about the long sequences and combinations that I had to remember in the beginning, but I soon began to realize that my brain was processing all the information faster and better than before.
Something else that stuck with me and will forever stick with me is the concept of the three rolling spheres. I'm now constantly reminding myself of these spheres, especially my hips, and I feel so much stronger when doing all movement when I feel my hips rolling forward. For once in my life, I can actually balance on one foot (on releve!), even if it's for just a second.
I have gotten so much out of this class, Louis, you have no idea how appreciative I am for absolutely everything.
-Kim
Katrina Hamilton:
This is likely to be my last ballet class for awhile, if not ever. I said at the start of the quarter that ballet is not my favorite, and that is still true (we all have our own aesthetics). Since I have finished my ballet requirements for the major, it is time to say goodbye to the form, at least for awhile.
The first part of the quarter I was focused on keeping my pelvis neutral. I was doing pretty good too, and everyday at the end of class my back was the right kind of sore from the adjustments I was making. But at some point the soreness stopped. I thought it was because I had finally stretched my lower back enough, but I think I have a more likely reason.
The problem is that my brain processes much faster than my body. It knows what to do to keep my pelvis neutral, so it's tired of working at it. The problem is that my body doesn't understand yet. So it is still trying to work, while my mind isn't supporting it.
My body can't take what my mind won't support, so I was getting injured a lot. By the end of the quarter I was going to sleep with an ice pack every night, not knowing why. Without support I end up sitting out because of my knees, my feet, my back, etc, and still not improving. This has to do with my personal drive. I need to work at making myself more patient, and giving myself challenges rather than waiting for them to find me. So maybe I know the list of things required for a neutral pelvis. But if it is still not happening, something is missing. I need to make a challenge in isolating individual factors. Maybe it's not as interesting as learning new things, but I think it's what I need to do.
The other thing I learned about myself was effort. I have to put in at least three times what I expect to get out, or my body will give up and shut down. If I'm not pushing it to the point of exhaustion, engaging everything at once, it gets loose and collapses. With everything else in life going on it's hard to push something more than it seems I need to, but I have to retrain my brain to know that I can't do a bare minimum when it comes to dance. It has to be all there, all at once, all immediately. Like I used to do every class.
I've taken at least 8 different beginning ballets classes at UW in the last 5 years. It makes sense that I would start to get bored, even with changing teachers. The fact is I have had a lot of wonderful teachers, you included, who have all helped me improve in some way. But there's a limit to what a teacher can do if a student isn't willing. And there's even less to be done if the student is too blind to see this. I may not be taking ballet next quarter, but I will be in modern. If I can apply these things that I have learned about myself, about effort, patience, and focus, then maybe I have a chance of going ten whole weeks without an ice pack. We'll see!
Thank you Louis, you're a wonderful teacher and a great presence to have in the room.
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