Week 7 – Transformation Friday?

I know transformation Tuesday is a thing on Instagram, but it’s making an appearance on a Friday anyway.

I am a very visual person when it comes to seeing changes.  If I can’t see it, has anything really happened? Along this line of thought, I decided it might be nice to share some progress pictures of the things I have been working on the most when it comes to ballet. I have even gone so far as to film a video. I thought that maybe in another couple of months or so I could post the same thing again and see how things are coming along..

Pirouettes

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure whether to post this video at first because it felt like I was really putting a piece of myself out there, more so than if I posted just posted a photo. When it came down to it, how else was I going to show my progress in something like a pirouette without it?

I filmed myself during one of my pirouette „sessions“ at home. I fell out of many of them…but these are the two best ones. I wish I could pirouette like this all the time. Like I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I am better at pirouettes at home than in the studio…

The main thing I think I am lacking is the use of my back muscles. Until very recently, I didn’t realise that in ballet you are meant to control your arms using the back/shoulder muscles. So I think in this video I really need to improve on the „dead hands“ thing…

Feet

Left foot

Right foot

Out of all the things I have been working on, my feet seem to be the only one where I can feel a change more than see one. I am not sure if I can really alter the structure of my feet anymore now that I am an adult…but I am going to damn well try!

From all my „therabanding“ I really feel like my arch and metatarsals are stronger. Sadly, I don’t think my toes are going to be touching the floor anytime soon.

The top pictures were taken around November 2014. The bottom two were taken more recently, about a month apart. As you may be able to see, my left foot is my favourite foot 🙂

Splits

Please excuse the double butt

This week I had two classes and in both classes I touched the ground on both sides of my split (I had two classes because of that missed week over Easter, so I decided to publish this blog entry after my second class).

My splits still aren’t comfortable. I can get them down, but I definitely don’t want to stay there. My front leg feels straight, even though there is a gap under my knee. One of the huge changes I noticed since the last time I reached the ground (which was a while ago) is that I kind of like the stretch I feel when I am in the splits (for the first 30 seconds at least).

I hope I can keep my splits this time. Like I said in my first post, I reached the ground about a month or two ago and I finally thought I had them. Then, before I knew it, the ground seemed to be far away again…

I think the main thing that helped my splits this time was to change my stretches up a bit. It really helped me get those last couple on inches down.

Those three areas are what I have mainly been working on since I started ballet back in July 2014. Considering I am only doing one class a week at the moment, I think I am doing fairly well.

My 27th birthday is less than a month away and as an early birthday present to myself I signed up to a 4 week course at another dance school in my area. The classes start on the 17th of May and the classes are on a Sunday. Although this dance school was recommended to me by two separate people, it is quite pricey so I ruled it off the list early on. They have a few different adult ballet classes run by different people, but the one I chose is by a former Royal Ballet School student who performed for some ballet companies in Europe. I’m hoping some of her talent will rub off on me…

I am back to one class a week next Tuesday, so until then have a great week!