Day 5: Viewing Day

I stuffed my mouth with Honey Nut Cheerios. The delicious circles floated in a pool of milk upon my tongue where they were then brutally executed as I crushed them between my teeth. The mini-dancers in my head sidetracked me from the flashes of Everybody Loves Raymond that reflected in the window. Today was viewing day, and I needed to look at least a little competent on behalf of the dance school, and my dignity. I can't help thinking every time I do the Chinese Nutcracker that if I were in China doing the routine, I would bring dishonor the dynasty of my family and be cast out to defeat the Huns with Mulan. The mini-dancers in my head make it look so easy. Theoretically, if I can figure out how to do it mentally, I should only be a few synapses away from communicating that physically, but evidently, my logic is flawed.

I arrived to the studio as mentally prepared as I possibly could be, but nothing could have prepared me for the degrading event that was to follow. After our routine pliés, and some sort of tombe-kick-bootie-flex-sequence, the teacher proceeded to go get some 10 year olds from the junior competition team in the classroom next door. They literally waltzed into the room...I always figured that "waltzing into a room" was just a figure of speech that meant to simply...walk into the room, but these cuties could have been doing the straight up Argentine Tango by the way they strutted to the bar. The teacher told them what to do and like little adolescent robots, they responded. We got a lesson from children today. For the love of dance........................I already feel bad about myself. She sent them away only to call them back and tell them to show us how flexi they were. These children were like bendy straws, popping their little extremities into uncanny, unnatural, and inhumane positions. All the other girls in the class were all smiles and positive comments and I was just looking with utter jealousy that they got such an early start at becoming so good. The moral of her story was that it’s "so easy, a 10 year old could do it." Now I know how horrible the Geico cavemen must feel. I have to work harder than those girls because I have less time but I think I can get there.

Today was a very fruitful class. I learned!! I learned from the little munchkins and I learned from the teacher. Basically, my core is very important in everything that I do in ballet. My stomach should be flexed and engaged at all times which I guess couldn't do harm if I applied that concept to my everyday life. It might be a little weird when the occasional grunt interrupts my conversations, but hey, sacrifices are necessary in achieving your dreams!

When it came time to viewing in the last 10 minutes of class, I realized that all my fretting was for nada. There were three old people watching that weren't very scary and the Chinese Nutcracker is one of the few things in that class that I can moderately do. That went well and it was recorded for me but I still haven’t watched it because...I'm scared to.

I'm thinkin' I will seek extra help this week because I sure need it. UW is the light at the end of this tutu tunnel. I'm motivated. Pray for me!!

Love,
BalleBREna