Blog 13, the week of the développé.

Lyda started with a few new exercises this week. And there it came, the exercise I am so in awe of. 

“At the barre, from the 5th position lift your front leg fully pointed in cou-de pied devant and slide it up the supporting leg until the toe touches just beneath the knee, the retiré devant” Lyda said, “and then without pause lift your leg through high attitude devant and extend it to its full possible height without dropping the level of the knee.” 

There it was, the exercise I dreaded most, this is when the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, and yet it is the exercise I looked forward to and that I identify totally with ballet:  it is called the développé.

This adagio movement confronts me totally with my stiff body, with my inability to extend my leg in a perpendicular position. And mind you, of course with your leg turned out. 

But I did it. 

In the act of extending my leg and lifting it up as high as possible my muscles started to tremble and shake, with the utmost effort I went on, sweating, feeling rising tension in my hamstrings and lack of power in my hip flexors; and then the reverse, ending the movement in the 5th position. What a relief!

And as you might already have guessed, Lyda added the développé à la seconde and derrière to the movement. The développé derrière differs from the devant and à la seconde variation by lifting the leg through cou-the-pied derriere to retiré derrière. From there the knee is raised, pressing it in back of the shoulder and lifting it through high attitude derrière. And then continue to lift the leg into extension. You can accommodate the height of your leg by increasing the tilt of your body forward. Stretching your free arm in front of you completes the pose. 

And there we have the arabesque! In my case the petite arabesque…..

I remember that when I started with ballet in November 2017, Lyda demonstrated a high developpé à la seconde. I was stunned; she performed this with such ease! She was genuinely surprised when I exclaimed my “Wow.” I guess that I will need a few years of training to copy that. But her performance was very reassuring in a specific way. The almost indifferent way in which she made that développé made me realize that this was the real deal. 

In the second lesson, I had a fall back in muscle power. I was still tired from the exertion of the previous lesson. Yes, after the rise comes the fall.

Wednesday I had some bad luck. A motorist nearly collided me when I was running. I had to jump to the side of the pavement and bruised the little toe of my left foot. It hurts. I’m afraid this will take a few weeks to heal. 

Well, that’s all for now. Have a nice week!

Blog 12

To me, ballet is much more than a dance technique. I think ballet is a form of mindfulness, where body and mind work together. 

After a tough day, there is Bayadère.

Just the sound of the accompanying piano music during barre exercises can give me such a rich and fulfilling experience. The music is soothing, clear and touches me. Music is so powerful; it reaches your deepest feelings in an instant and cleanses your soul. And how beautiful and enriching it is to combine this experience with the precise and balanced movements of my body, in sync with the music. 

Talking about my body: each time I think I’m progressing with ballet, Lyda waltzes me into something new and again it feels like I am a salmon swimming upstream. It takes effort and to be frank, it isn’t easy at all. But I love it.

Ballet as my medicine against the harshness of life, ballet as a meditation; yesterday I even thought of it as performing a prayer, a tribute to life. Another mindset, concentrating on the exercises, breathing in and out, flexing my muscles, on demi-pointe in that classroom filled with that beautiful music. 

In one of my previous blogs, I asked for advice about combining my sports with ballet. So one of my fellow students, Marion loaned me a book: “The dancer’s book of health.” It is written by L.M Vincent MD and gives valuable insight into the care and training of the body. A book written in the eighties that proves to be timeless in a lot of ways. 

Marion is one of the students I met when I started ballet in November 2017; she helps and encourages me on my way as a ballet student. 

Thank you, Marion, for your enthusiastic and positive attitude! 

By the way: this was the week of the crazy socks at Bayadère. Put on some colorful socks Lyda said; leave your ballet shoes at home. Lyda has a way of brightening up her weekly lessons. It is fun. And hilarious to see what the fellow students wear and how they react.

See you next week!

Blog 11

In my last blog, I wrote about having troubles with combining my sports with ballet. For example, my leg muscles shorten (become stronger) with weightlifting, and as a result, I lose flexibility. 

Lyda gave me a piece of sound advice on that topic. She asked me to look into the matter of concentric and eccentric muscle movement (which in turn I put in relation to plyometric exercises). 

A kind of active balancing in shortening and lengthening the muscles is the riddle of ballet. But in a different way than you might expect. She explained that in a grand battement, for example, kinetic energy is released on the way up (beginning by pushing into the floor to energize the leg) and the weight of the leg brings it down (fall). Less effort is needed on the way down. 

The descent of the leg is not controlled by gripping the quads in an effort to resist gravity, nor is ascent a result of contracting your quads! How about that!!!! 

For your information:

•    Concentric means "toward the center": you shorten a muscle and visible joint movement in the direction of the action of the primary muscle like flexion of the knee occurs. 

•    Eccentric means "away from the center": you lengthen the muscle, the distance between the ends of the muscle gets greater; it is a counter activity of contraction 

Don’t worry: I will not exhaust you with a lecture on muscle function.

When a concentric contraction (shortening) of muscle is immediately followed by an eccentric contraction (lengthening) of the same muscle, this is called a plyometric exercise. Think about exercises, like hops and jumps, in which maximum effort is expended while a muscle group is lengthening (there is a high risk of injury for those who are not well conditioned). Athletes who want to improve explosive power use this kind of exercise. 

And now think about ballet dancers, they are exposed to great eccentric loading of the lower extremities due to a high frequency of repetitive jumps and leaps!

My great discovery this week is that ballet applies a lot of exercises that are in fact plyometric and that classical ballet has perfected this for hundreds of years into a system that is safe and effective. 

I am totally stunned. 

Further on, in my research trying to understand what is actually happening in the dynamic movement of the dancer I discovered the book “ Ballet Beyond Tradition” written by Anna Paskevska. Anna wrote a fascinating chapter about the use of potential and kinetic energy in ballet. This really opened my eyes and even makes me more aware of how sophisticated classical ballet in fact is. And that I shouldn’t rush ahead, I have a body that needs to be trained and tamed to acquire that basic level of skill required if I ever want to make more advanced movements.

Lyda shared my blog on her Bayadère Facebook account. I feel honored that Gypsy Booth, president of the Association of Russian Ballet and Theatre Arts, subsequently shared this with the Facebook accounts of the ARBTA and Friends of ARBTA. I met Gypsy in April 2018; Gypsy took my exams for Grade 2 and awarded me a highly commended. Thank you so much for your support!

And a special thanks to the fellow students that reached out and told me how they enjoyed reading my blog.

Please feel free to give a comment on my blog. Or contact me on e-mail address: bert.jonker@movetoballet.com if you have a particular issue you want to share with me in my (or your!) adventurous journey into the world of classical ballet. 

Blog 10

Last Monday Lyda gave us some anatomical lessons about the knee. In these new series of lessons, Lyda gives special attention to this part of the body. In a correct stance the armpit, hipbone, and feet are vertically aligned. This requires different muscles in your body to contract or extend. You have to understand a few things about muscular functions. In the aplomb stance, the patella is in an uplifted position, and this is a result of contraction of the quads. You need to develop your quads in ballet to lift up your legs. Strengthening your quads requires exercising over some period of time. And these exercises are in fact the regulars of each lesson, tendu, jeté and so on. The trick is to perform the exercises with contracted quads, keeping your patella uplifted, so you build up strength. 

She repeated this message in the second lesson later on in the week. 

I start to recognize the function of the patterns in Lyda’s lessons. All the exercises are in fact building blocks. They prepare you for the next challenge in ballet.

For example, the temps levé we perform in the lessons. From demi plié in the first position, you jump upward, pulling your toes under your heels (fully stretched feet), aligning your legs vertically with your hips. You have to keep your back erect, in the air and upon landing. 

You have to press your heels into the floor in a controlled manner at the beginning and the end of every jump. Pushing off from the heels and landing through the whole foot gives higher elevation and better landing. In our lesson, we make 32 jumps in temps levé. The temps levé is, in fact, one of the easiest forms of jumping. And prepares you for the next step.

And I must confess, writing about the exercises is a lot easier than performing these exercises. It is a challenge to stay upright in position, to jump upward from a demi plié with the bras en bas. And to remain in the same spot while jumping! 

I still find it difficult to combine my other sports with ballet. Yes, I understand that a male dancer needs to have strength in the upper body and lower back. That I can integrate with my cross fit training. But the legs form a different challenge. After weight lifting, I lose flexibility, after running I have troubles with my demi pliés. And even my turn out is more difficult after running or boxing. As much as I love ballet, I love running in nature. Or biking through the woods. 

I really need some advice here!

This week Lyda informed the students that I write a blog each week. I kept this a little bit of a secret until now. I first wanted to explore my ability to write this blog on a regular basis. I discovered that I like to do this. And though it takes some more time than I first expected, I discover that preparing a blog is also a way of studying classical ballet.  In the process of writing the blogs, I bought a few books. In a future blog, I will tell you more about this.

As is the custom at Bayadère, after a vacation period Lyda wants to make a fresh start. Usually, she varies the known exercises and introduces new ones.

I find it difficult to remember the exact variations. I’ll have to pay more attention to memorizing the exercises. 

There was one particular new exercise that I immediately felt fond of, the tendu soutenu, starting from the 5th position: a stretch of the leg and the foot to a fully extended position, while the other leg bends simultaneously (in a demi plié). The movements are performed with the legs turned out. And then of course in a fluid motion from devant, to à la seconde and derrière, accompanied by piano music. 

I practice every day in achieving more turn out. The force for the turn out of the legs must come from the hip down and not from the floor up. If the turn out does not come from the hip, you will hurt your knee eventually. 

It takes a slow pace to transform your body to the demands of classical ballet.

Last Saturday a few members of the adult class and I went to the theatre of Dutch National Opera & Ballet, located in the historic city center of Amsterdam. 

The Dutch National Opera & Ballet presented a short preview of its program for the season 2019-2020. It gives an impression of the vast repertoire. And of the preparatory work that needs to be done. In one hour short interviews were conducted with the management and some appetizing performances were shown of opera and ballet. 

There was one particular ballet performance that was really astonishing:

a grand pas de deux from the third act of Swan Lake, widely known as the ‘Black Swan.’ I was impressed by the grand jetés, those long horizontal high jumps, starting from one leg and landing on the other. It was as if the Russian dancer hung in the air, in a front split. Just like those spectacular jumps Nureyev made.

Blog 8

As I promised in my previous blog last week, I will write about my first lesson. 

It was a trial adult lesson to be exact.

I remember standing at that door in November 2017, Wednesday, at 7.15 PM. It was dark outside. Bayadere seemed to be part of a school building, the entrance door was closed, I rang the bell and looked into the corridor. I felt excited, and at the same time, I was nervous.

I knew exactly why I was standing there, and yet I asked myself: what am I doing, I’m almost 60, I have no particular background in music, ballet nor aptitude for this beautiful form of art. This is an entirely new world I’m stepping into right now, what will be left of my ideas and concepts, only based on persons (Nureyev), books and strong feelings about the Russian ballet tradition, how will this reality check payout? I knew I was now putting all my expectations to the test: is this really what I want? Is this my place to be? Or am I fooling myself?

Well, I can only explore the unknown by making that first step. This is what I wanted. The magic right then was in the doing.

I remember a woman of middle age entering the corridor after I rang the doorbell, she welcomed me and guided me to the dressing room. I heard piano music coming out of a place next door. 

I expected a mixed group of adults in the dressing room, but it turned out that I was the only male student. Oh yes, the group was mixed in other ways, by age! Some of the students in their twenties and thirties, the oldest 50. Some of the adults sitting in the dressing room turned out to be the parent of the young ballerina’s, training.

And at 7.30 PM a door swung open and about 8 girls came chit chatting through the door, followed by Lyda. Young ballerina’s, laughing and talking, dressed in black leotards, white tights, and white ballet shoes.

As Lyda showed up, she welcomed me, showed me the place where I could change. There was a separate section in the dressing room for the male dancer.

After changing my clothes, we went to the dance floor. Me on my socks.

In entering the classroom I saw the adult students, standing at the barre, each of them doing warming up exercises.

I suddenly felt immersed in a new world and was very keen on taking the next step. 

In this first lesson, I learned a few things about the correct placement and how to hold the barre. Ballet techniques I remember most of the first lesson are the complexities of the posture, being aware and able to move your muscles separately, in contraction and extension. Shoulders down, rib cage up. And of course the positioning of the feet. In ballet, all movements are performed with the legs turned out. 

My fellow students were completing their exercises with such ease! And look at me, I was just a beginner.

At the end of the lesson one of the students clapped her hands and told me that my life would never be the same again now I had performed my first ballet exercises. Well, how true this is!

I felt blessed with my teacher Lyda, she really seems to know what she is doing! And she is a terrific coach!

I realize that much of what I am writing about deals with emotion, my emotion. I feel ballet is a way in which I can handle my feelings in a positive and uplifting manner, and combined with my deep urge to move I can use every inch of my body: ballet is truly an art of expression. 

And maybe that’s the deepest of all my desires: to express myself entirely.

I found the next sentence on de site of the Heritage School of Classical Ballet from Hope Miller in Dallas USA; it covers perfectly what I just said:

“We teach Russian technique which develops emotional expressiveness, strictness of form, and an energetic manner of performance.”

See you next week!

Blog 7

Next week Dutch children have a week off, enjoying Spring Vacation. So next week Bayadere is closed. Usually, Lyda invites parents of the children to join the last class before a vacation. And reversedly in the adult classes, the parents can introduce one of their children in the class. 

I asked my daughter. She is a young woman, busy running her own life but in these cases, she is eager to join a lesson. Last time she came to Bayadere with me was in August, in an extra open class during Holiday season.

After class, she told me that I am progressing! I was astonished. And she wasn’t joking. Yeah, sure, my placement is improving. And in a way ballet and its peculiarities are seeping more and more in my mind, body, and life. But me progressing? Unbelievable, because at times it really doesn’t feel that way, it can be tough. And of course, I know I’m a beginner. I think there is a long road ahead of me. But all my hard work is paying off! 

So next week there are no classes. But I will stick to my daily flexibility exercises. And in the next upcoming blog, I intend to write about my first ballet class in November 2017. After a set back in January 2018 due to a rupture in one of my calves, I took exams in Classical Ballet at Grade level 2 in April 2018 with the Association of Russian Ballet and Theatre Arts. I was awarded a Highly Commended. Something I could have never dreamed of. But more of that in one of the upcoming blogs.

Yesterday I celebrated my 60th birthday. My wife, 2 sons, and daughter organized a dinner for me in a Persian restaurant in Amsterdam. Our seats were decorated with garlands and balloons. I enjoyed my dinner and at one point the owner of the restaurant put on a Persian Birthday song and all the visitors started clapping their hands for me. We had a wonderful time. 

I appreciate it when you share your feedback on my blog with me. When you instead prefer to email me I invite you to mail me at my email address: bert.jonker@movetoballet.com.

Have a good week!