“There’s a reason why we do the boring exercises.”

One of the instructors says this in Dance Academy, demonstrating how simple quarter turns eventually adds up to multiple pirouettes and fouettes. I was reminded of the value of the “boring exercises” in my class last Monday.

Despite being pretty tired from the weekend and work, I decided to try out Philly Dance Fitness’s new Monday night beginner ballet class. The instructor has been with Philly Dance Fitness for a while, but she just started teaching a new ballet class. I’m always nervous about taking classes with new instructors (since I never know what to expect), but luckily the class was at least in a familiar studio.

It was a super back-to-basics class, which I feel like I really needed. Currently, I’m trying really hard to focus on not over-pronating, which can be really tough to do when we’re doing more difficult combinations. The simple combinations allowed me to really focus in on this (although wearing too tight ballet slippers made this a little tougher). In addition, it was a pretty small class (there was only about five of us), which was nice. My only qualm about the class was that it was so late (8 to 9:15pm).

Overall, it was really nice to focus on the basics and work on positioning my body properly and having better technique.

I’ll definitely be keeping this class in my rotation so that I can keep working on the basics and really focus on not over-pronating.

Have you taken a “back-to-basics” class lately?