Ballet Through Their Eyes

So I'm now 2 months into Grade 5 in ballet and shit's getting real. The jump from Grade 4 to 5 is mental. It's so much harder it almost feels there surely must have been a Grade 4.5 in between we somehow missed?!

This grade we do not one but two pirouettes exercises, having only done releves in Grade 4 - no actual turns. It seems odd to go from no turns to full ones with nothing in between, like halves or quarter turns. Nope, just straight in. Worst still, one of the pirouettes is from 2nd position, which is damn hard! I searched all over the internet to find a video demo of someone doing a pirouette from 2nd and all I could find is one wee girl on YouTube attempting it and failing miserably. No-one does it because it's bloody awful!

When you continually do something and continually fail, it does become difficult to keep motivated. This is how I feel with pirouettes and sometimes, even with ballet in general. When I have a hard time being motivated in the face of failures, I find looking at beautiful ballerinas in action gives me the kick of inspiration I need.

When my body doesn't do what I want, when my inner ear decides that I can't do turns without getting mega dizzy and when my hamstrings prefer to contract than stretch, then sometimes I need to rely upon the beauty of ballet through others.

What inspires you when you're not feeling it?

QMichelle