Once upon a time, long long ago.... I started Ballet

Hello everybody! Well it has been forever since I have been on here, truth be told I had actually forgotten that I had this account in the first place. Well as some of you have probably guesses I have taken a break from ballet... well it has been just over a year since my last ballet class but it has been even longer since I posted on here.

I guess the main reason that I stopped posting on here is because I started getting negative comments on DDN and that affected my feelings towards this blog. So after my last post on here (which was my first ever class in Inter-foundation 1) I continued dancing until about March 2011 when I was about a month into a patisserie course that I had decided to take so that I could get a job that I could be happy and completely fulfilled in.

When I started this course I didn’t think that it would interfere with my life much, but with it being on the other side of town and the hours I was forced not only to give up my beloved ballet classes but to cut back my shifts at work to Sundays, meaning that even if I had the time to go to class I could no longer afford it.

But before I was forced to leave my classes I did manage to get approved for pointe! I know right! It was only a basic introduction to pointe aka rolling up onto pointe at the barre and basic stretching exercises. I was approved for pointe right at the end of the year and went out and got my pointe shoes over the Christmas break and got in a couple of months of pointe before I left. It was hard work and my toes killed me but I have to say it was some of the best time I had in a ballet class!

Oh and I also bought a car! Yay me! So now that I have just finished my course and I am just starting to pick up more shifts at work I am going to go back to my old studio and see if they will take me back! It may take me a month to save enough money and get back into the right mind frame to dance, it might take longer than that but I plan to get back into ballet!

So until then I am going to leave you some photos of what I have been doing since I last posted and I hope that it will not be too long before I can tell you what I have been doing in class again!

Thanks,

Bonnie_Rose

This is a show piece that I made for class... and it is completely made from chocolate!

One days hard work from a team of 16 patissiers in the making!

My first ever attempt at a gingerbread house

for some reason these are the only photos i could find of me in my pointe shoes

my home town at about 6:30am

our cakes day, each student had to make 2 types of cake, and 4 cakes of each type in 2 days then we sold them to the public for morning tea.

my home town at around 7am a week before the other photo... but before daylight saving time kicked in

Inter-Foundation Class 1

Ok, so I’m back! You may or may not be wondering where I went. Well to be honest I didn’t really go anywhere, but last week the time my ballet class was supposed to be was changed temporarily from Wednesday night to Thursday night and because of work I was not able to go and then I found out that the Saturday class that I was supposed to go to starts 15 minuets after I started work! So no ballet for me last week and because I was feeling so depressed by that I didn’t update, instead I made cupcakes! They were raspberry with really thick butter cream icing and a whole raspberry on top! No wonder I gained weight during the holidays.

So anyway, I was able to go to class last night and there were 4 people in it! Which id a big steep up for me because so far I have only been doing private classes. So there was, besides me, two 12 year old girls (both of whom were extremely friendly, nice, and have WAY too much energy) and a 40 year old woman... who started ballet when she was 18! Whoooo! Another late starter! She was nice too but more of a wall flower then the others though.

Class was really good. We all got there early and had time to stretch and get to know each other before class started. It was kinda funny the 4 of us all just walked over the barre simultaneously and lifted our left legs onto it and started stretching without a word to each other. We also compared our splits at one point in the class and guess what... mine is better then one of the 12 year olds! Oh and while we were stretching found out that everyone else is already en pointe which sucks for me.

So class started out as normal with plies and simple things like that but 10 minuets into the barre we started doing things I have never heard of before. There were still some things that I kinda knew what they were but most of the things I had no clue. Oh and about half way through centre we were supposed to do a pirouette combination across the floor... the only problem with that was that I have never been taught to do a pirouette before, so instead of joining in with the others my teacher pulled me aside and started to teach me the basics of how to do a pirouette.

Class was supposed to only be an hour but the other girls wanted to do a pointe class straight after my class ended, my teacher invited me to stay and do the 30 minuet class in flats but because I had already organised a ride before class I had to go, but I did ask my teacher what her requirements for going en pointe were and although she didn’t tell me exactly what they were she said that at the end of the year she will assess me and see if I am ready for pointe!!!!!!! YAY!!!! I know she may say that I am not ready but still... it is something to look forward to.

I think that is all for today, class is on Wednesday next week so I will try to update in the later part of the week...

Until next time,
Bonnie_Rose

Ballet withdrawal and a new dance bag

Hi all, I was planning on waiting until I had my next class (which is next Wednesday) before I updated, but I am currently going through ballet withdrawal so much that I decided to buy a new ballet bag! I found it when I was out shopping with my mum, nanna, sister and aunt. It is not a dance brand like Bloch or capezio, it is actually a converse bag and was 25 dollars cheaper then all the dance bags that I have been looking at that are about the same in size and number of pockets.

So since then I have been trying to figure out what to put in it, I mean I already have the basics in it like my leo, tights ect. But what else should go in it? Oh and I am getting some legwarmers tomorrow yay! But I think that is all I have to say for now... sorry for the short post but I will tell you all about my first inter-foundation class next week, until then here is a picture of my new bag and the things I have in it... if can think of anything else that I should have in it please let me know!

Thanks,

Bonnie_Rose

Class 5

Hi all!

Ok, first off I would like to say sorry for mot updating last week. I hurt my hip and shoulder (still not too sure how I did it though) and I didn’t get to go to class and I was too devastated to write on here.  So on a brighter note, I did go to class last night and it was sooooo much fun. I had my old teacher again and it was ok, except for the fact that apparently the school is holding its concert next week and the end of term on Saturday and it was so busy in there that I didn’t even get into class until 20 minuets after my class was supposed to start and then (because my teacher is the owner) we kept getting interrupted but because of this she decided not to charge me for the lesson, thanks Judith!

Ok, so even though there were lots on interruptions and we stated late she still worked me really hard and by the end of the class I had defiantly worked up a sweat and she had a little surprise for me right at the end. I am moving up into inter-foundation next term! She said that she had used to class to see how far I had come and she liked the way I handled myself at the barre and how I took direction and corrections, I need to work a lot on my strength and flexibility over the holidays so that I am not embarrassingly behind but I am really looking forward to it. Oh, and she also mentioned in passing that the other teacher I had said that I picked things up quickly and remembered them. Yay I impressed the teacher! There is also another girl at the school that will be progressing to inter-foundation too and so we are going to be in a class of two! And she said that we are probably going to be doing 2 classes a week if we are both free at the same time! We both know that I am going to be behind the other girl and that it is going to push me but I love to be pushed (it is when I do my best work) and hopefully I will really improve in no time.

So I think that is all the news I have for this week, now I have to spend 2 weeks away from ballet class nooooooo...... I honestly don’t know if I will update between now and next term but if inspiration strikes I might upload some videos of a couple grade 3 exercises that I know but that is all for now.

Peace out,

Bonnie_Rose

P.S. anyone know any good exercises that I can use in the holidays to help strengthen the muscles in a develope and turnout?

Class 4, Grade 3 and Goals

So I had my 4th class last night, but because my usual teacher went into the hospital to have her knee re-done, I had class with one of the other ballet teachers at the studio instead.


When I first arrived my teacher was completely ready to go, usually when I get there my other teacher (because she is the owner of the studio) almost always has some problem to take care of, so I have time to stretch when I get there, but last night my new teacher was ready to go straight away so I can’t tell you how glad I was that I had warmed up and stretched before I left home.

When I told her what grade I was doing she seemed surprised and said that if I had started with her that she would have started me on at least grade 3. So instead of moving from grade 1 to grade 2 like I thought I was going to do, we stared on grade 3!

Oh My Merlin it was fun! A lot more work and a lot more complicated then grade 1 but it felt so good to by pushed. There were several new things that I learnt last night such as grand plie, attitude, grand battement, Développé and petite retire. There was probably more but I have forgotten ha ha ha. I think my favourite new exercise that I learnt was releve/echappe. We did them right at the end of class (we only did barre in class which I LOVED) and by that time I was exhausted! They were so fun though and I can still remember the combination! I will have to post another video soon to show you all.

Oh and my new teacher thinks that I have better turnout then her! Ha ha awesome! But she also told me that I really need to work on keeping my hips level and to not move them so much when doing some of the exercises. All in all it was a great class and I hope that I have this teacher again next week. Do you think it would be rude if I asked to have class with this new teacher every week?

Ok, so I have decided to set some goals for myself for while I am doing ballet. 1) Get on pointe – I know this seems like an obvious goal but it is something that I really want to do and I can only hope that my teacher will let me. 2) learn pas de deux – most people will be thinking ‘why?’ but I have always loved watching pas de deux and don’t care if I am not that good at it I just want to try, the only bad thing is that I don’t know if it is possible at my current studio. 3) Dance the tambourine variation from La Esmeralda – now this one I know will take forever to get to but I have been watching several different versions on youtube and have fallen in love with it, so even though it will take years, it’s on here.

These are all my long term goals. My short term goals are all like get stronger, get more flexible, loose weight, buy a ballet skirt (lol that last one should be done buy the end of the week but it is on here).

I didn’t realise until a girl on DDN brought it to my attention, that some people on here might not know how to leave a comment. To tell you the truth I didn’t either until I logged out and had a little play around. All you have to do is look in the column on the right hand side for archive section and click on the post that you want to comment on and the scroll down and you will see a comment box and away you go.

A big thankyou to all of you that have commented either here or on DDN, it lets me know that i am not just talking to myself and thank you for your kind words. Well that is all for now.

Until next time,

Bonnie_Rose

My first video on youtube!

Hello again to anyone that is reading my blog! Well because I didn’t have a class last Thursday because of work I decided that I would do a little video of some of the things that I have learnt so far and upload it onto youtube for you all to have a look at! I would love it if you could leave me a comment to tell me what you think, but please be kind, I have only had three classes ha ha ha.


Until next time,

Bonnie_Rose



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlIl56bP9OI

Class number three and buying my first leotard

So last night was class number three and let’s just say that I am still tired from it. I can tell that I am getting better at the barre and I hope that my coordination is getting better in the centre. Oh, and some other news, my teacher said that next time she is going to start incorporating some grade 2 into my classes! Yay! At least I know that I am not totally stuffing everything up.



Ha ha I also went out yesterday before class and bought my first leotard. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting a horror scene with tiny leotards and mega wedgies but I found one in my size and in the colour that the studio wanted me to get and although it did feel a little odd it fit well and the colour looks nice with my skin.


I think that is all I have to say for today, except that I do not have a class next week because of work but I might still update if inspiration strikes me and I decide to write another post.

Until next time,

Bonnie_Rose