Ballet

For the past couple of months I've felt really creaky, and I've also noticed certain of my muscles relaxing that weren't relaxed before - the muscles surrounding my pelvic girdle and my ischium (okay, I just looked that second one up).  

It took me a while to figure it out, but I think now that the reason for this relaxing is that I haven't been taking any ballet.  I never thought ballet would make much difference to these, what I would call, minor muscles, but thinking about it I realise that, since ballet is quite good for the core, it probably makes a huge difference to those minor muscles.  In any case, I decided to combat this development (or retardation) by giving myself a barre three times a week (which is how often I was taking full class shortly before I came here).

Having told that small story, I should now say that I believe it is the lack of ballet that's the problem, because I've given myself two barres this week, and in both of them I could feel in particular how tight my turnout muscles are,

and also the great extent to which my inner thigh muscles had deteriorated.  I find this odd since I never noticed them getting stronger, but it does make sense.

But the point of this is not the anatomical discoveries I made, but rather the emotional one. Because in the course of doing these two really very light barres I found I had entirely forgotten how much I love ballet.  When I take class at home I do it because I really like it, but I never noticed that I loved it:  that when I stop and notice while doing the barre, I feel exhilarated.  I suspect some of this may be due to the fact that I'm reawakening my muscles, which is always a nice experience, but I think it's also just that I'm really happy to be doing this.  This type of dancing (like, I suppose, all types of dancing) makes me really happy.  In this type, you can really feel the work, which I like (who knew I was such a Calvinist?).

When I was in my second year of university, I went out dancing three nights a week.  Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I danced from 11pm to 1am.  And that year was the happiest year of my life.  If I could go out dancing three nights a week now, I would do it like a shot.

And, to end, here is a picture of my favourite ballet position: