May 25, 2014

Ballet Class Recap: Back to Ballet

Sometimes, I really don’t realize just how much I love ballet until I end up missing a couple of classes.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, although I have good reason: my job recently increased from a part-time job to a full-time job last week. Before that, things were really, really hectic at work, so I didn’t have much time to write (or make it to ballet class either).

While I’ve made it to a few Monday classes during the past month, I haven’t gotten much a chance to make it to classes with my usual ballet instructor. Last weekend HQ and I ended up heading home for a long weekend to celebrate my sister’s 21st birthday, so I missed out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday classes.

This past Monday I went to an awesome event about anti-street harassment by a group I’ve written about a few times called Hollaback PHILLY. While the event was great, I unfortunately couldn’t make it to ballet.

I made myself go to ballet on Thursday finally–even though I was tired after a long week of work. I ended up having to grab a cheap snack–some lemon pound cake from Starbucks–just to give myself enough energy to get through the class. While the class was tough, I was happy that my legs did fine during the class and I seemed to be doing as well as I had been in past ballet classes.

HQ and I both went to class on Friday, which I felt I did better in because I knew most of the combinations from Thursday’s class. I always really enjoy Friday’s classes because they’re smaller and we often get to spend a little bit more time breaking things down. I’m also thrilled that my ballet instructor is going to start offering  pre-pointe classes on Friday evenings after our normal class. It’ll be an easy way for me to gradually get back into pointe work.

How have your ballet classes been going this month?

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May 13, 2014

Getting Back into Running + The Philly 10k

 

philly10kUp until the past two weeks, HQ and I haven’t been doing much running, even before the hot chocolate 5K. Now that it’s finally starting to warm up, we’ve started to run a bit more. Although I’ve already dealt with some issues like tight calves (and running in the wrong shoes), running seems to be going relatively well for us only being two weeks back into it.

It’s felt like I’ve been running really slow lately–I keep forgetting that I haven’t been running that long and it’s going to take a while to get back to where I was before I stopped last September. It’s been something that’s been really tough to do, and I usually end up pushing myself too hard. I’m debating doing couch to 5k again (or some other sort of interval series) so that I can do a better job of making sure I don’t push myself too hard, even though I’ve yet to stick to the program for more then a few weeks. Any suggestions for doing so would be greatly appreciated!

The reason we returned to running so late was partially due to me trying to take it easy post-stress fracture as well as lack of motivation. I think to solve this motivation issue, I’m going to try and find a 5K for mid-summer (around the time I’d be finishing C25K) and then start 10K training for the Philly 10K.

I’m excited for the Philly 10K for a few reasons:

  • motivation for HQ and I to finally get past the 5K distance and actually train
  • running through the city vs the river trail
  • supporting Philadelphia Runner (one of my favorite stores)
  • awesome shake shack with cannolis and free beer

Now I just need to find a 5K for the summer. If you’ve got any suggestions for 5Ks in the area–let me know!

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May 5, 2014

Ballet Class Recap: Headaches and Busy Saturday Classes

I failed in my goal for the week of making it to two classes, and I only ended up making Saturday morning’s class, which I hadn’t been to in a while.

Here’s why: Thursday usually HQ either meets me at the subway or by the studio when he gets out of work so I don’t have to walk home by myself. However, this week he had to work late, so I didn’t go.

We were prepared to go on Friday, but I ended up with a pretty painful headache all afternoon (and into the time ballet class started) and instead decided to go out for a run later in the evening.

HQ and I instead went to ballet class on Saturday morning which was packed with 19 people in a relatively tiny studio. Apparently everyone else failed to make it to the earlier classes in the week (there were only 2-3 people in each of the classes) and instead decided to come to class Saturday.

Barre went fine, other than the fact that my brain got a little bit scrambled on some of the more difficult combinations. Center, however, was kind of a mess. I made it through the first easy combination no problem, but I failed at most of the across the floor combinations, partially because it was somewhat difficult to see what was being demonstrated as well as to mark out the moves–especially during a turn sequence where I ended up doing turns to the wrong direction at first.

Overall it wasn’t a horrible class even though I was really disappointed with how center went. My leg seems to be doing a lot better (thank you, calf raises). But in the future, I’ll be trying a little bit harder to make sure I make it to Thursday and Friday classes.

 

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May 1, 2014

Ballet Class Recap: Food Allergies and Pas de Deux

Finally over this next weekend I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things and resume my five day a week posting schedule (I miss it!). I’ve just been a little bit under the weather, not to mention busy.

Starting last Thursday, I was feeling pretty crappy, thinking I had some sort of stomach bug. I wasn’t sure of the cause, but it was definitely bad enough to affect my work and my plans to go to ballet class Thursday night. Luckily, I felt well enough to go to class Friday night.

HQ tagged along to Friday’s class–something that always makes me happy–and for a little while we thought we were going to be the only ones in class. My ballet instructor said that if we were the only ones, she would show us some partnering steps (an idea that slightly terrified me). Some more people showed up, so we didn’t get a chance to try it out. However, my ballet teacher said the next time the other male dancer who takes the class comes, we’d “play” around with some partnering stuff after class.

The rest of my weekend didn’t go quite as planned–I made it to Content Camp and learned some cool things but we ended up leaving early. I felt pretty much downright terrible from Saturday evening into Monday mid-afternoon, when I started to feel better. I think I might have a slight avocado allergy, since I ate a lot of them around the times I felt sick. I also started feeling better once I stopped eating them, and I’ve had other slight issues when I eaten a lot of avocados before. (My sister thinks she might have a slight banana allergy–and both are related to the rubber tree).

Luckily, I still managed to feel alright to go to Monday’s class, which went well. I’m looking forward to hopefully making it to at least two classes this weekend as well as sneaking a run or two in as well since I’ve been feeling better.

Have you ever done partnering steps in your ballet class, or even taken a pas de deux class?

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April 23, 2014

Ballet Class Recap and General Updates

Since I haven’t posted since last week, I fee like I kind of fell off the face of the earth with this blog–even if it really hasn’t been that long.

I spent most of my weekend (starting on Wednesday, since I worked three days in a row last week) with my family and struggled to get even my homework done for the Coursera Python course HQ and I are taking. I also got in a few runs while at home since there is a nice running trail there. My legs seem to be doing super well, and I’m currently looking for a cheap-ish 5k in May/June to run.

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