Italian Fouettes Are Evil

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="(Photo courtesy of grishko.com)"][/caption]



I've had maybe 9 or 10 pointe lessons so far now, and I'm really pleased with how well they're going. Considering I went from super-wobbly barely able to hold first position releve for more than 16 counts in my first lesson to actually attempting Italian fouettes in my lesson yesterday, I must say I'm pretty chuffed :-P Of course it helps a lot that my shoes are now actually broken in, and I've figured out the optimal configuration of padding for this new style of shoe.

With that, I'd like to just say that I'm quite enjoying these shoes (Grishko 2007). I don't think the Bloch Serenades I had before were bad, but the shoes I have now feel quite different, in a very good way. I haven't actually danced that much in them, and they've formed to my feet much better, and also, I can actually roll through demi-pointe in these (I remember having so much trouble with the Serenades). I don't know that I would characterize it as "floating weightlessly across the floor" or whatever words my teacher used to ask me how they felt, but they certainly make doing lots of things way easier!

Like... pirouettes!! I'll just say I really suck at all things that involve rotation around a stable axis. I much prefer jumping and leaping, because I just really feel like I'm terrible at turns of all types. Even before I went on my hiatus, I could do lots of things, but I just always sucked at turns, pirouettes and chaines, specifically. I still suck at chaines, but I CAN DO A PIROUETTE NOW!! My teacher even hinted that I should start trying for doubles yesterday... I'm not sure I'd go *that* far in my celebration, because I can't consistently do them even in soft shoes, but hey, I guess it's a good sign? Actually though, once I got my shoe padding right, I often feel like I'm actually more stable with my turns en pointe than in flat shoes... but then again, I've yet to actually attempt a double en pointe, so who knows. So yay progress! Still terrible at hops though, that's going to take awhile to rebuild, I think. 32 changements en pointe I can do with some fatigue at the end, but I can't even do little fake-hops on one foot really. I can "do" them, but every other one my ankle does something weird and I have to stop so I don't break something XD

The last 2 lessons, we've spent some time on a variation. It's the "Variation de la Reine des Dryades" from Don Quixote. It get used as the female variation of Le Corsaire pas de deux sometimes, as exemplified by Margot Fonteyn.

[youtube dLItQ3vFUZk nolink]

I can actually do it, kind of! My balance is terrible, so I need to work on that so I'm not like stumbling all over the place, but we got through most of the variation and I can actually do everything so far!! And then we reached the part where I have to do like 10 Italian fouettes... Nooooooope... I've had some time to actually process what the physics and the sequence of motions should be, so I have a better idea of what I *should* be doing for them, but that doesn't mean I can actually execute it. I spent some time dancing in my socks in my living room after class yesterday, and yes, I've figured out what I need to do, but I can't really do it very well even not en pointe. So that's the last barrier before I'll have successfully learned the variation. Let's hope I don't break my ankle trying to get it!! XD