Crossing the Barre...

As I reach the end of the quarter and say goodbye to this ballet class, I find that the last couple of weeks have been monumentally important in my training this quarter.

Analyzing my performance in class and giving myself a grade turned into an extremely introspective assignment. I became aware of many of my proclivities and saw where I had been coming up short.

To summarize: I struggled learning the sequences of the exercises.

This last week of class I've had my first small break-through with this process. After the grade-defense, I took a serious look at my habits, and to improve, I tried physically following every exercise as it was demonstrated rather than simply watching. This helped me to understand better the sequencing of the exercises and I went through many of the steps without missing counts or having to rely on watching the dancers around me.

I know that I have a long way to go, but this quarter ended on a high-note for me and I think that I now have a better way of approaching ballet technique next quarter and onward.

Also, Jessica told me I should look up the ABT Ballet Dictionary: http://www.abt.org/education/dictionary/index.html and I've set a bookmark for myself on my safari page and think that reviewing the vocabulary and becoming more comfortable with the basic steps will be very helpful for remembering sequences in the future and I am much looking forward to crossing the bar into winter quarter's ballet technique with my new tools in hand.

Woo!

~Brian