Here I'm with my teacher, Mimi MacDonald, on my eighth lesson and last day of adult-beginner ballet class at the Center of Contemporary Arts. I took it for the challenge. I never got good at it, but we all made progress and Mimi (trained by a Soviet ballet master in the strict Vaganova method) understood that maybe my hip sockets aren't like those of classmates 35 years younger; thus my difficulty with the basic turnout. I enjoyed the variety of people in the class, all dressed alike and reaching for the same ideal. It 
wasn't at all like writing, unless it was like learning the fundamentals, such as the alphabet and how to hold those fat pencils--so long ago I don't remember. I do think now, however, of the people who had the patience to teach me. Thank you.I practiced between weekly classes with a beginning-ballet DVD (cursing, perspiring, at best making it through 65 minutes of a 90-minute DVD), thinking about what Martha Graham said in her autobiography: "Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired."
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Good for you Catherine! Practice seems to be the key in getting better at most things. I hope you had fun.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, you LOOK adorable! :-)
ReplyDeleteIsn't it weird that our bodies can't do what the younger ones can anymore? I can never quite believe it, until I attempt to do something out of my normal bounds. I refuse to believe it, and then I go pull a muscle, or break a toe or something.