Today was a good day. Possibly even a great day!
I owe it all to my travel mug of wonderfully, delicious coffee. At least that's what I'm holding responsible. For now.Usually I don't bother to make a pot because I know I will have to go to the bathroom the second that I'm finished. [I'm not exaggerating. I promise]. But this morning I was craving it, despite the heat in our apartment. We'll see how my accusations play out for the second half of my summer here.
I've been getting frustrated in my both Ballet and Dunham for several reasons. One. People don't try. I've mentioned this before and I still think that they just don't care. Which is completely insane to me considering we are at The Ailey School. Anyway, today our Ballet teacher was seriously picking on this one girl. I've noticed her in class before, looking as though she has never taken a day of Ballet in her life. Mrs. Marino walked over to her after the second exercise at the barre and plainly said, "Why do you do it like this? [Demonstrates a sloppy tendu]. Are you tired? Are you bored? [The girl shakes her head no]. Good. Then do it right. Like this. Show me that you want to be here." I am glad that she is finally calling people out and making them do it correctly. Our Dunham teacher, Mrs. Peters did this today as well. [I guess they wanted to wait until we all got the first week of classes under our belt?] In previous classes, if one person messed up, then we would have to repeat the entire exercise until no mistakes were made. And they aren't easy exercises people. They hurt our backs, our hips, our butts, our hamstrings, even our teeth. Any body part you can think of, hurts. Like you can't even imagine. So during one of the exercises, after Mrs. Peters repeated the same correction over and over, she told everyone to rest a minute and singled out the one girl. [Different girl than in Ballet]. It was like she wasn't listening to the teacher's corrections. And they were pretty straight forward things to fix. Things that she has been saying since day one of this class. I sort of felt bad because she must have done the excruciating arch backwards ten times before Mrs. Peters thought it was acceptable. However, the rest of us were doing it correct, so I was thrilled that we didn't have to strain ourselves anymore than necessary.
At the end of both of the classes, we even did something that was almost fun! Believe it or not. In Ballet, we were asked to form a line of dancers who had yet to be in the front. Previously, Mrs. Marino has hand picked people to be in the front line, second, so on and so forth. Which is the second reason I have been frustrated in class. I raised my hand and placed my self front and center. I wanted her to see me because that when she pays attention to you. There were a few times when at the end of our exercise, she looked at me and said, "That was good. Good." I tried to secretly soak in the praise but I'm pretty sure that the huge grin on my face gave it away.
That's why today was such a good day.
Thank you wonderful coffee!
I will see you tomorrow morning at 7:00 am!
"I'm changing. I don't know exactly how yet, but I'm so excited to find out."
I owe it all to my travel mug of wonderfully, delicious coffee. At least that's what I'm holding responsible. For now.Usually I don't bother to make a pot because I know I will have to go to the bathroom the second that I'm finished. [I'm not exaggerating. I promise]. But this morning I was craving it, despite the heat in our apartment. We'll see how my accusations play out for the second half of my summer here.
I've been getting frustrated in my both Ballet and Dunham for several reasons. One. People don't try. I've mentioned this before and I still think that they just don't care. Which is completely insane to me considering we are at The Ailey School. Anyway, today our Ballet teacher was seriously picking on this one girl. I've noticed her in class before, looking as though she has never taken a day of Ballet in her life. Mrs. Marino walked over to her after the second exercise at the barre and plainly said, "Why do you do it like this? [Demonstrates a sloppy tendu]. Are you tired? Are you bored? [The girl shakes her head no]. Good. Then do it right. Like this. Show me that you want to be here." I am glad that she is finally calling people out and making them do it correctly. Our Dunham teacher, Mrs. Peters did this today as well. [I guess they wanted to wait until we all got the first week of classes under our belt?] In previous classes, if one person messed up, then we would have to repeat the entire exercise until no mistakes were made. And they aren't easy exercises people. They hurt our backs, our hips, our butts, our hamstrings, even our teeth. Any body part you can think of, hurts. Like you can't even imagine. So during one of the exercises, after Mrs. Peters repeated the same correction over and over, she told everyone to rest a minute and singled out the one girl. [Different girl than in Ballet]. It was like she wasn't listening to the teacher's corrections. And they were pretty straight forward things to fix. Things that she has been saying since day one of this class. I sort of felt bad because she must have done the excruciating arch backwards ten times before Mrs. Peters thought it was acceptable. However, the rest of us were doing it correct, so I was thrilled that we didn't have to strain ourselves anymore than necessary.
At the end of both of the classes, we even did something that was almost fun! Believe it or not. In Ballet, we were asked to form a line of dancers who had yet to be in the front. Previously, Mrs. Marino has hand picked people to be in the front line, second, so on and so forth. Which is the second reason I have been frustrated in class. I raised my hand and placed my self front and center. I wanted her to see me because that when she pays attention to you. There were a few times when at the end of our exercise, she looked at me and said, "That was good. Good." I tried to secretly soak in the praise but I'm pretty sure that the huge grin on my face gave it away.
That's why today was such a good day.
Thank you wonderful coffee!
I will see you tomorrow morning at 7:00 am!
"I'm changing. I don't know exactly how yet, but I'm so excited to find out."
3 comments:
You made me cry...I'm so glad that you are getting so much more from these classes than I even think you know...I can't wait to hear all the stories and I am so proud of you!!!!! Love Mom
hey nicole it's megan mcneill... i saw your blog update on fb and had no idea you were doing ailey this summer! congrats! i did it after my first year at dean and i felt the same way as you... that people didn't try in class and that we weren't really challenged. i remember my first few ballet classes we weren't allowed to use our port de bras with our plies because "we weren't ready for that yet". even though i didn't feel challenged in my ballet classes at all, i did come back from the program much more flexible and my balance was a lot better too. so even though you don't feel like you're getting anything out of it, trust me you are :)
also, i loooooved west african and i miss that class so much. does maguette camara or something still teach it??
Ahhhhh! I'm so glad you found my blog! It's good to hear that someone else feels the same way that we do. Things are definitely getting better and we are can start to see the programs benefits!
Yes, we have Maguette Camara and we love him!!!!
Hope things are going well with you : )
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