Ballet Journal #1

This will probably not be included in the book, since it's ridiculously boring for everyone except myself and Jill, my ballet professor for whom it is written. Skip it if you wish.

Week #1: January  26th-29th

This week was rough for me, and I don't think it was just because it was the first week back from break. I think I need to work on my body awareness-- if I knew that my arms were in the right place without having to focus so much about keeping them there, I might be able to relax my shoulders. I can't relax my shoulders. In order to relax my shoulders, I either have to drop my chest, (which is wrong) or drop my elbows, which is also wrong. It probably doesn't help that my back hurts constantly; Meg said it was from stress...but I'm stressed because my back hurts and I can't move the way I want!
I also think I would balance better if the bone in the ball of my foot below my big toe didn't grind on the floor so much. This is something that had only just started to happen recently, but it's beginning to hurt increasingly, even when I haven't been dancing on it all day. I know my supporting side has always been the main thing that throws me off when balancing-- I would say the misalignment from my ribs to my hips is a factor, but if I fix my supporting side, this would be fixed as well.
I have no excuse for why my petite allegro is so terrible, always. It's always terrible. Maybe it's from being exhausted, but everyone else in the class is equally exhausted  and they pull it together. I know the fact that  none of my teachers ever did a petite allegro in class doesn't help, which is unbelievable to me now.
Pirouettes, too. How come I can't do those anymore? I used to be able to do at least a clean double on both sides, which isn't in the least bit impressive, but now I struggle constantly. Thinking back on it, I probably wasn't doing them correctly, but I'm still discouraged.