Thanks for the death grip

The classes I attend, most are in a class room with portable barres. So If one happens to rely the barre to much for support, it tends to start to migrate. Also the classes are usually packed so that we have students on both sides of the barre.

Portable barre (pic reference)

So if U are on the other side of the barre, and a fellow student with a death grip is on the other, it can happen that your barre is being pulled away from you. Really a big problem when doing grande battements. 'Cos some may have the tendency to use the barre as a way to rev up their battement. I know, I am probably guilty for it too. But not anymore, thanks to my friend with the death grip. At least not so much. A friend like that does wonders for your core muscles! And for your supporting leg. In fact, I therefore propose that everybody should have a friend like that!

First Pirouette en Pointe for Eva!

I did it! My first pirouette on pointe! It was terrifying! I wasn't sure I would make alive, but I did! Haa haa!

We started from the fifth and did pique pirouettes. U could just to step on pointe and bring the other leg to passee, if the piroutte was too intimidating. Which it was for start. But the I just thought to try it. And I did and it wasn't so hard that I had imagined to be. I'm sure it was far from elegant and graceful, but it was a legit turn on pointe with the other leg on passee. And I didn't even break my ankles. At all.

Afterward I was all like

From giphy.com

...without the firewood of course. Why would I have those in ballet class, duh!

So simple, but so hard

This fall I started a short course en pointe technique. Before I have done some short exercises en pointe on my regular classes. Usually 10-15 min at the end of the class.

The pointe class in on Friday, after a regular class of 1,5h, and lasts for an hour. So that's 2,5 hours of ballet on a Friday evening. Pretty exhausting I might say. We do first some basic warm up series on the barre with the pointe shoes on, plies, tendues and so on with some stretches included. After that it's time to do some rolling warm ups for the ankles like in the video below. We do these from the sixth, first, second, fourth and from the fifth position (the last two for both sides, naturally).

Then some small jumps and stuff: echappes, jetes, pas de bourrées etc. At this point some do these in the center, but I stick to the barre. Maybe I'll cough up the courage to these without the safety net, the barre, some day. Hopefully. And finally some center exercises that include bourrée for one. I like the bourrée, it's simple yet hard at the same time. It's very en pointeyi, so I you can fool yourself in to believing that it's dancing what you are doing. Gah.

My pointe shoes for now
Bloch Sonata 3 1/2 C