Repurposing the blog...

So I think I'm going to just use the blog for my athletic pursuits, while I wait to figure out what they are.

 

First, bad news on the rowing front: the coach has resigned (not due to any issues with the rowing club or university.)  I don't know what that means moving forward for rowing...  I had planned to go back in the summer, but I guess I will have to wait and see.

 

I signed up for an adult ballet class.  It starts tonight.  I am very nervous.  My last year of college I started ballet, spent a few years doing it, got pretty good, got my pointe shoes, and then switched to skating.  When my hip got hurt I did 6 months of ballet. Now it has been 2 years since that.  I put on a leotard this morning and if you gave me a pink tutu I would perfectly recreate the look of the hippos in Fantasia.  It was not a pretty sight. 

 

 I am terrified of the class.  I signed up for "Continuing Ballet" rather than "Beginner Ballet".  I called and asked "What level of beginner is your beginner class" and the director laughed and said "Uh....well, most people come in not knowing anything, but by now they've all had 16 weeks (the fall semester), however, since you're asking you should probably take the other class. Beginners don't think to ask, they know they are beginners."   So that's what I'm doing.  My ballet vocabulary is pretty large, but my ability is not.  If the class is people who have moved up from a few years of beginner, I'm good.  The problem is, since it is a University outreach program, if it is college students coming off 11 years of training fresh out of high school, I'm screwed.  Without a doubt I'll switch classes, or if the class level is appropriate, but it is all college students, I might just have to go in a hippo costume, because man, I'm huge compared to what I was when I took ballet in college!  (Size seems to be so much more an issue in ballet than skating.  Leggings and a t-shirt are just so much more covering than tights and a leotard.  I don't feel like a whale in my skating costume, but OMG that leotard was not pretty...)

 

Last night I did Sh'Bam at the gym.  I really like this dance aerobics class.  We had a new set that had a ballet like exercise in it, sort of a rombe de jam, arebesque, penche, and then to the other side.  One, it showed me that I still knew how to do it correctly, because man there was some ugly form in the classroom (to be fair, they weren't being told to do it in a ballet way, so of course they just pitched over at the waist), but my balance was SO wobbly.  I'm in for a learning curve for sure at ballet.  As for Sh'bam, I've finally gotten over the embarrassement of the 'club' dancing and really shake it now.  It's fun, but I look ridiculous.  Did anyone watch "The Middle" this week? Sue does her wrestler-ettes dance, and that is pretty much exactly what I look like.

 

So far, no regrets on stopping skating lessons.  Guess time will tell.