Swan Kick, Part Two

Last year, I had the silly idea of taking ballet classes.  Now, let it be known that I’ve never (as in, ever) taken a ballet class.  In fact, dance classes of any kind are totally foreign to me.  I grew up on a steady diet of clarinet lessons and other decidedly geeky (but great) pursuits.  While my friends were taking jazz and tap on weeknights, I was squeaking away at Mozart and Poulenc.
But over the last few years, I kept thinking about ballet. 

Why, my friends asked, would I want to take up something that was associated with pain and forever messed up feet?  A number of them had taken classes as kids.  While most of them loved it, they always warned me of the toll it had taken on their lower extremities.  As one friend said, "You've seen my Frankenfeet, right?"  This is not to say they didn't support me.  They absolutely did.  My supporters merely wanted to give me a heads up on the physical icks.  I assured them I was only taking a beginner's class in regular slippers.  No pointe classes for me.  Although, I have to admit as a shoe fanatic, those torturous satin constructions sure are pretty.

One reason I wanted to learn ballet concerned discipline and grace.  Also, my last kickboxing instructor mentioned that ballet classes could help with balance and overall poise.  Because you do need poise to correctly kick the crap out of something, or someone.  And I like kicking and hitting.  This is why I’d been taking intermittent kickboxing classes for years.  We'll take a quick detour here, and I'll give you a brief history of that, since it's roundhouse kicks that ultimately led me to grands battements.

It all began back in, oh, 2002, while I was living in Chicago.  I'd joined a posh health club, and they offered a boxing circuit class.  So I signed up, figuring it would be a nice break from the elliptical and treadmill routines.  Taught by a former boxer, I quickly realized how much I enjoyed it all.  He made the class fun; we participated in drills like ducking back and forth under a rope and throwing medicine balls back over our heads.  And hitting, of course.  I loved it when we'd form a line and take turns just pummeling our instructor's arm pads.

Later, when I moved to Minneapolis, I joined other gyms and had different instructors.  More hitting, plus the excellent addition of kicking, but the recipient was always the instructor or a big old bag.  That changed when I moved to a little gym dedicated to kickboxing, run by a no-nonsense guy with a practical sense of humor that I liked.  At this place, you still kicked and hit, but you had a partner.  This meant sometimes you were hitting, and sometimes you were getting hit.  So you kind of had to be paying attention, lest you should space for a minute and get a cheekful of workday frustration swaddled in a stinky, sweaty boxing glove.  It wasn't really sparring, but there were some exercises where we were hopping around and waiting for our partner to take a swipe at us.

My partner was my friend Michelle, who’d been taking classes with me the prior year at a different gym.  We both ended up leaving after our teacher was laid off, and she convinced me to join her new spot.  Michelle was no less intense than anyone else in class, and I had to quickly learn to receive what I doled out (or tried to).  I have vivid memories of hugging a huge bag against my chest (I think they were called "blaster" bags), waiting for Michelle to do a running kick straight into my sternum.  I'm still surprised I didn't go into cardiac arrest at some point.  Sheesh.  While I was probably a less than stellar partner, it was great fun, a solid workout, and a good way to vent whatever was irritating me that day.

As mentioned earlier, I lucked into having an instructor named Suzanne, who was very encouraging and very nice.  You could also tell she could kick your ass in a moment flat.  It was Suzanne who seemed to possess the flexibility and grace that comes from a dancer's background.  I envied (and still do) her amazing and effortless spinning back kicks.

My interest in becoming a better kicker, coupled with the desire to try something new, led me to the doors of Zenon Dance School.  The school is part of the Zenon Dance Company, which boasts a solid reputation in the Twin Cities as one of the premier dance companies.  Not content to play second fiddle, the school was also recognized this year as the best place to learn how to dance by one of our local paper’s annual surveys.

I arrived for my first class in the stately old Hennepin Center for the Arts, a massive Richardsonian building located downtown.  It felt like school, it even smelled like school, as I walked down the hallway.  Since my new endeavor began in September, it felt all the more appropriate to enroll in a class.  Images of that TV show of my youth, Fame, and photos from the book, A Very Young Dancer, flashed in my head as I entered the room.  Three of the walls were lined with barres, mirrors took up one entire wall, and some very experienced-looking, sylph-like dancers were warming up in full-on dance attire.  I’m pretty sure I was the only one who looked like a lost gym rat in my shorts and t-shirt.  Making a fool of myself isn’t something I shirk away from, as you can see.

My instructor was a very high-energy lady named Becky.  She’d run around the room as we’d do our relevés, pliés and piqués.  And while I’d lumber through the exercises, Becky was always supportive and kind.  I mean, she’d correct you if your form was off, but in a way that your favorite high school teacher or aunt could point something out without making you feel like an idiot.  After hearing horror stories about stern ballet teachers from my friends, it's obvious that Becky is the complete opposite.  She wants you to try everything without the fear of being ridiculed.  She welcomes everyone.  In fact, I finally went to a class a couple of weeks ago after a (cough) three month absence.  She immediately said hello, addressing me by name, and said it was nice to see me again in class.  In fact, Becky gets a shout-out in the aforementioned poll.

It’s been over a year since I first walked into that classroom.  While I have not been very consistent with my attendance, I’ve probably racked up about 4 months worth of weekly classes.  I’ve learned a lot.  And I’ve found something I genuinely love.  You know how a lot of people have that thing that relaxes them?  Most of my friends swear by yoga.  Ballet is my yoga.  Similar to poses in a bikram class (or my experience of it), ballet makes me focus and relax at the same time.  It’s a workout.  Sometimes I even break a sweat.  Becky's class moves fast, and the last portion includes floor exercises.  My legs always feel like mush after the hour and a half class.  As for the discipline and grace I was seeking?  The German major in me appreciates the technique and rigor involved, and the little princess in me loves the grace in moving an arm up, out, and down.

I also love that the class is diverse, both age and gender-wise.  There’s a guy who’s probably in his late fifties; he shows up in his black leotard and is for sure in better shape than I am.  The general mood is casual and friendly.  One girl offered to sew the straps of my ballet slippers into the typical criss-cross pattern.  She’d spotted my decidedly un-ballerina-ish method of securing my shoes, which you can laugh at in my pictures.  Another gave me support when I admitted I’d never taken a class before.

So, there’s my ballet story.  I went into it thinking about kicking stuff.  Now, I relevé while waiting for the microwave to blast my dinner, and I'm currently practicing hopping forward onto one foot and staying there.  Like a clumsy old cat trying to pounce, I guess, but then keeping the back legs up in the air.  OK, bad analogy.  In any case, it's a lot harder than it seems.

Moral of the story here?  I went into ballet with a supplemental mindset, but instead, I found something that I really, really like.

Images:  my own