More Class = Less Blogging

I planned to blog yesterday, but I found myself without the time or energy to do so. I had classes all day, beginning with Russian at 9:20 a.m. and finishing with modern class at 5:25 p.m. I barely had any breaks all day, just a half-hour to warm up for ballet after the end of Russian lesson and two ten-minute breaks later on. I didn't even manage to make it to the cafeteria for lunch!

I knew that I was likely to end up without any significant breaks, for Tuesday is one of the days when I have two afternoon classes instead of just one and is also one of the days when my ballet teacher is scheduled to continue class during our lunch hour. Because of this, I made sure to pack myself some snacks to eat while heading from one class to the next.

Our ballet classes have been becoming longer and longer, and yesterday's was our longest yet, lasting for over two and a half hours. I am sure that today's class would have lasted for just as long as yesterday's had we not needed to vacate the studio because another class was scheduled to begin there. 

Though I end up thoroughly exhausted by the end of class, it's a good kind of tired. I am glad that my teacher, Liudmila Kovaleva, cares about our dancing enough that she is willing to dedicate extra time to teaching us. I really love her class, too, so I'm happy to get even more of it than I thought that I would. We frequently will repeat combinations in the center five or more times before she is satisfied enough to move on to the next one. I like the repetition, for having the chance to try to do a combination again and again gives me the opportunity to fix mistakes and details that I might have missed the first time around.

Though satisfied with ballet class, I was very tired, so I was glad that I had a chance to rest a bit at the end of acting class, when we watched a few of the other students in my class practicing pieces that they had learned. Our modern class always starts with some stretching and strengthening exercises, and sometimes even some time spent massaging out the tension in our feet and legs, before we start working on our center and across-the-floor combinations. That felt especially nice yesterday!

I am about to head to character class, which I love. We start class by working on a couple of barre exercises and then spend the rest of class learning pieces of character dance choreography. We are currently learning a Spanish dance that I am particularly enjoying. Everything about it can only be described as beautiful- the music, the arm movements, the way the music goes together with the choreography. I also like the other things that we have learned, but that dance is my favorite, so I really hope that we spend some time working on it today.

:)