Ballerina Girl at Bollywood Dance Class

She’s the one in the pink shirt and skirt with the really long hair. They’re all so cute! There are two little boys that are absolutely amazing — enthusiastic and skilled.

BBoys Unite!

For the summer, Science Boy is taking a break from all his ballet and science and becoming…

BBoy!

Check this out:

Yep, new season, new studio. Science Boy, or should I say, BBoy has been begging me for breakdancing lessons ever since Season 2 of “So You Think You Can Dance.” I made him wait until (a) he’s had a full year of gymnastics to develop his upper body strength, coordination and balance, and (b) he was 7. He could’ve started at 6 but I didn’t want him to be the youngest one in class.

His teacher’s a pretty cool cat, a young Vietnamese American spark plug named Joe who’s a member of a professional breakdancing crew. He starts and ends class with a demonstration–all the better to show the kids what they’re working toward, right? Cool thing that happened at the start of the very first class: he asked the kids to show him what they thought of as “breakdancing,” and my own little BBoy started doing his gymnastics cartwheels and handstands! Teach was impressed!

The first class involved learning the first few moves of the Top Rock, the Six Step and a freeze (there are many). BBoy’s been practicing all week. We’ll see how he does this Tuesday, which is when his class is.

PS: Ballerina Girl wants to take an Indian Bollywood dance class. It’s also held in BBoy’s breakdance studio, right beforehand. Blame SYTYCD again for this. Jai ho!

Fall Season Already?

Summer’s barely begun and already people are forcing me to think about Fall. Yep, FALL. As in September. As in forking money over to studios and gyms. This morning, I had to hand over moolah for “priority registration” at my kids’ gymnastics gym. I put that in quotes because I have a sinking feeling that it’s all just a ploy to rake in the revenue way before they have to deliver the goods. Wouldn’t that all businesses could operate this way. GM probably wouldn’t be bankrupt right now if they could make people pay full for a car months ahead of time before they actually got the stinking thing.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, money. Today was also the deadline to register for fall ballet. Science Boy will continue with Ballet 1 and Boys’ Class, but I had to make a decision for Ballerina Girl. Which studio? I couldn’t keep her in her current one because of scheduling, so I had a choice to make: my studio, or SB’s? My studio has a Sunday afternoon Ballet 1 class, which is mucho convenient for working mom me. With soccer, it’ll divide the running around we do on the weekend to two days and won’t pack all the activities on just the Saturday. But that’s the only advantage. I happen to know the teacher for that class and…well, she may have a bubbly personality but word has it she’s unreliable and is a frequent no-show. Plus tuition here is almost double what it would be at SB’s studio.

SB’s studio doesn’t have the Sunday class but the tuition is extremely reasonable AND the teacher, who I personally know, is an awesome lady. Energetic, a young mom, SAB alum, ex-Joffrey. Plus she has a son in the school who is a classmate of SB’s. And did I mention the tuition is very reasonable?

So it looks like SB and BG will be at the same ballet school in the fall. Saturdays will be hectic, what with needing to squeeze in soccer games somewhere in there too. But we can do it. Somehow. Even if I have to enlist my sis as a bus service once in awhile so I can attend my own ballet class.

Ahhhhh…the trials and tribulations of a dancing working mom with dancing/soccer-playing/gymnastics-tumbling kids.

Modern Dance Performance

One of my teachers will be performing with her dance troupe this Saturday and my whole family will be in the audience. It promises to be something different to watch, something that my (poor) husband, whom I’ve dragged to ballets and musicals, might appreciate more given that the dancing will be a lot more improv and athletic. It’ll be our first live modern dance concert ever and I for one am really looking forward to it.

Speaking of dance perforomances, thank GOD the new season of So You Think You Can Dance is back on! I’m already hooked even though it’s just audition time because of the return of three compelling auditioners from last year who came so very close but didn’t make the top 20 (I especially love the musical theater guy from last night, Katee’s roommate and the powerful 19-year old male dancer who performend to Orff’s Carmina Burana. Sorry, didn’t quite catch their names yet).

Dance on!

New Shoes

Every dancer falls in love with a certain brand/pair of ballet shoe, and for me that shoe is the Capezio Juliet, leather, size 4, wide. It fits like a glove, the pink is muted and is very comfortable.

But after only eight months, I find myself needing to get a new pair because the interior of my shoes have gone to crap. The lining has disintegrated and there’s a big giant hole in both shoes right where my big toe rest, and when I dance, both my big toes shoot into the holes and constrict blood flow.

For my new pair, not only have I decided to go the canvas route, I’m also trying out a new brand, from a company called Wear Moi. Apparently, they’re French and brand new. The shoes are comfy and snug, the lining is cotton instead of this fleecy thing (which was the biggest selling factor in addition to comfort), and best of all, the elastics are pre-sewn. I was concerned about the dirt factor but the salesperson who sold them to me said all I needed to do was throw the shoes in the wash and air dry them and they’ll be good as new.

Looking forward to dancing in my new pair of shoes.

My new Wear Moi canvas ballet shoes

Update

Man, I haven’t posted in awhile. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of exciting things happening. First of all, I just wanna give a quick mention that this weekend is the opening weekend of that most fabulous movie, “Star Trek.” Y’all go see it. I hear it’s a celestial wonder.

Okay, for a dance update:

• Science Boy is continuing his twice-weekly ballet classes. I don’t really see any improvement on his part as far as posture or grace or rhythm, but then again I attribute that to the fact that he is a boy, and for boys, I hear coordination with these things come later. Right? His gymnastics however is improving by leaps and bounds. If the kid can walk down the sidewalk on his hands he’d do it. Great cartwheels, great handstands. Which is why I’ve taken him out of one of his ballet classes and enrolled him in…BREAKDANCING! He’s gonna love this.
• Ballerina Girl has a recital coming up in June. I’m a little amused and weirded out by the fact that both my kids exhibit traditional boy/girl behavior, meaning SB is good at math and science, likes to build buildings and blow things up, and has no grace to speak of, while OTOH BG likes pink, tea parties, tutus, princesses, loves to dance, has great coordination and can follow instructions really well. Which means she is doing very, very well in her dance classes, so much so that she’s smack in the middle of their formation for recital and the other girls look to her for choreography cues. Makes me proud. **sniff**

Because of all these kid activities, I’ve unfortunately had to suspend going to dance classes on the weekend, which means Advanced Latin Jazz on Tuesdays, Kickboxing on Wednesdays (the class I teach), and ballet on Thursday and Friday. I’d rather not go to ballet on Friday but I don’t want to have just one class a week. So off I go tonight before going to Star Trek.

Aaaah…the weekend is finally here. Enjoy the brief sunshine and have a great weekend!

Today’s Petite Allegro Combination

From today’s Ballet 2 class:

Jeté – Temps levé – Jeté – Jeté
Glissade – assemblé – sissone fermé – changement

Now on the left.

Awesome!

Summer Schedule

Even though it’s only March, I’m happy to report that I’ve finalized my kids’ summer schedules. Both Ballerina Girl and Science Boy will be going to gymnastics camp three mornings a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for three hours each. Then on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, SB is off to ballet camp for two hours, and BG alternately to Musical Theater and Ballet/Tap for one hour. And nothing for the weekend! Yay!

As for me, I’m hoping to take a stretch class and start lifting again, but when? Already I go to four classes a week. DH will kill me if I add any more classes.

She Works Hard for the Dance Class

I couldn’t do it. I tried, but in the end, I just couldn’t get myself to quit cold turkey and stop going to dance classes. Why would I do such a horrific thing, you ask? Money, plain and simple. Sucky economy, trying to cut back on spending. But like I said, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even cut back on the number of times I went to class. Right now I’m at three ballet classes and one jazz class a week. It adds up.

What I did end up doing was buying an unlimited-class card, which saves me money per class and lets me attend any adult open class I want. It was kind of hard to drop that much money all at once but in the long run it will save me money and motivate me to keep going to class to get my money’s worth, not that I need much motivation to begin with.

One more thing I might be doing to save — this summer, I may have the opportunity to work at the studio by helping out at the front desk. Yippee! It’ll be time away from the family but hopefully not too much. I’ve asked for evening hours mostly. I don’t exactly know how the trade is done — one hour of time per hour of class? — but however it works out, I bet it’ll still save me even more moolah.

Ballet On the Three

So I’ve been going to Ballet II (kind of like an “Intermediate Beginner”) since November. I advanced pretty quickly from Ballet I to Ballet II (I kind of moved myself up at the encouragement of a teacher) and while I found the Ballet II class to be very challenging at first, I acclimated after about four classes and caught up to the rhythm.

Now, I feel that the Ballet II class may be getting a little too…comfortable. It’s not boring, don’t get me wrong. But the teachers rarely change the combinations from week to week (which is bad for my brain) and don’t really teach us any new tricks (why no sissones? Chaines turns?)

So I feel like it’s time for me to go to a Ballet III (”advanced beginner”) class. One of my teachers teaches on on Friday nights and I’m thinking of attending.

Cross fingers that I don’t fall face-first on my first try. Still haven’t 100% completely made up my mind to go, but since I got an unlimited-class card (yeah, I forgot to write about this, didn’t I?) I’m not really going to lose anything by going. And a whole lot to gain.

We’ll see…