Returning to Relevé

Today is the 1/2 way point for all of my challenges, and everything is going well except the stupid plank. I hit the minute mark a few days ago, but have been having a hard time making it any further (even 1 minute 10 seconds is too much). I don't know if its because I'm more tired this week (my schedule is rather crazy), or what. Frustrating! As for the other two challenges, I like the exercises and the fact that I can get through everything fairly easily and quickly, but think it would be more beneficial if I increased the reps. For example, this past week it said to do 12 of each exercise, but I'm wondering if I should treat them as reps and do 2-3 sets of 12 (or something). Will have to investigate further!

I mentioned back in May that my Grishko Novas had started giving me problems because they were twisting (especially on my left foot). I changed my elastics (used something heavier and criss-crossed them) and that helped some, but not completely. My AD thought I might want to try something with a higher wing. So, when I went on a family vacation at the end of May/beginning of June, I did my usual and looked up all the dance shops in the areas I'd be visiting and ended up being fitted at two. First, can I just express my annoyance that, when I called these shops looking for specific shoes, I was informed that yes, they carried them, only to get there and they had ONE pair that was not in my size? That doesn't count as carrying them, people! Capezio Airess Anyway, at the first shop the fitter was REALLY into the new Capezio Airess (in fact, I think the girl before me was trying them on too), and I was subsequently fit into the 1133 (tapered) model. I haven't tried a...

While my dance school does have a summer session in the month of July, the schedule tends to be a little more relaxed. With that in mind, I decided that I should amp up some of my other training and start working on (what I consider to be) problems areas. For me, that's my core, arms, and glutes (side note: I read this fascinating article via the Dance Training Project's Facebook page that talks all about how tight calves (!) can be a by-product of weak glutes). So, I decided to give this whole 30 day workout challenge thing a whirl, and on July 1st I started a couple of them. The big one is the 30-day plank challenge (I'm trying the one from here ). Having a strong core is super important for so many aspects of dance that I thought it would be a good place to start. Plus, I kind of want to be a bad-ass who can plank for 4 minutes. If you feel like joining me, comment here and keep me posted on your progress! We can all be bad-asses! That being said, I'm alr...

Our summer show was last night, and I finally feel like I can relax. The whole week was stressful, what with fretting over the little ones and getting ready myself (and trying to remember all my choreography). Luckily, things seemed to go pretty well for the bitties.  Me, however? Ugh. I messed up little things in both tap numbers I was in, though both jazz numbers went well. We had two pointe pieces, one more modern in flavor, and one classical (a variation from La Bayad ère). The modern piece went super well, but the classical piece? My strong suit? I totally botched it. There was one pirouette section in particular that I've always had a little trouble with because I don't get my weight forward enough, and last night I lost my balance a bit and had to fake the last turn. Ugh. I also messed up the beginning entrance, and a bit at the end I've never had trouble with before. I'm annoyed with myself because the last few times we did it in rehearsal it was actually go...

Sorry for the radio silence, y'all!  I've been pretty busy and haven't had a proper chance to sit down and blog, which of course means that I have a backlog of things to say (this is a little long). (Also, apologies for my liberal use of gifs.) Teaching Update Because of the whims of fate, I have suddenly found myself teaching three days a week! The teacher of the tiny pre-ballerinas got injured, so the AD took over and had me assist her teaching the class. After only 1-2 classes AD decided I was fine on my own and let me take over--eep! On top of teaching them three days a week (there are 3 different classes--so many precious tiny ballerinas!), I have also had to come up with new dances for each class to do for the spring recital. I have no experience choreographing whatsoever, so that has been a bit of a learning curve. Luckily, this is the 3-5 year olds, so the steps are very simple, and they're cute no matter what they do. Class/Rehearsals As for us "b...

In a weird but wonderful twist of the universe, we had a (former) professional dancer drop into the adult class at my dance school earlier this week. If that wasn't amazing enough, it turns out her new career is as a physical therapist! My AD asked her if she would be willing to look at my foot, and she was gracious enough to give me a little exam before attending class (awesome!) She told me that my symptoms were very similar for having an os trigonum, which can be hard to detect (I told her my podiatrist had checked for that and nothing had shown up on my x-ray, but I guess sometimes they can be super hard to see). All the balancing! Alternatively (and equally as likely) it may be the result of my tight calves in conjunction with my having had previous ankle sprains to that ankle many moons ago. Because of the sprains,  I've lost stability in my ankle and now my peroneal muscles are overcompensating when I do all my balancing/pointe work. Makes sense to me! She ga...

We just finished a two week Spring Break, and I actually (gasp) took a break. I decided that if I wanted to be able to do pointe for our spring show, I should probably let my foot rest. The latest news on that front is that it seemed to be some peroneal tendonitis, which is an overuse injury (everyone is shocked, right? haha). Besides the increased pointe in class, I have been walking more than usual, and because I walk turned out and supinate (all of which is bad), I think I aggravated that entire area. Le sigh. In completely non-foot related news, I am still struggling with finding something both comfortable and flattering to wear for classes. I mean...I don't mind wearing leotards and tights, but the leg holes of many of my leos squeeze things a little too much for my liking, which makes me feel like they don't fit and, therefore, aren't flattering. It's a little frustrating. I also continue to hate normal tights and how the elastic forever makes me look like a sau...