The Ashtanga Diva

To save some cashola, I enrolled in a once-weekly beginner ballet class at a nearby county rec center. Couldn’t quit dancing altogether but couldn’t afford to pay $18 per class at my wonderful old studio, plus travel 26 miles roundtrip for classes.

So I looked around for more affordable classes closer to my house. There’s a well-regarded ballet studio a mere 3 1/2 miles away from me but classes there were still a steep $20 each, and that’s for a one-hour only adult class. So I cast a wider net and found said county rec center class, which to my delight (at the time), cost a mere $77 for 10 sessions.

I guess you get what you pay for. The teacher, although a very nice and personable woman, more often than not comes to class unprepared. Her combinations frequently don’t go in time with phrase of the music, she forgets them midway through, she teaches practically no technique and issues no one-on-one corrections.

And then we come to the center where normal ballet studio etiquette flies out the window. She lets the guys stand in front and lets them go first when we go across the floor. Durign pirouette time, she doesn’t give any pointers and lets us land our passé foot in any direction. Her arms are all over the place, doesn’t teach us proper épaulement, hasn’t made us do many basic allegro moves like sautés and echappés and temp levés, and her center combinations have remained the same week after week after week. Drives me nuts.

She frequently starts class late because she’s busy chatting with other students, although her saving grace is that she does end the class late so we get a bit more for our money. Just a little bit more, though.

I can’t say this class improved my technique at all, or even that I enjoyed attending. I think for the spring I’m going to bite the bullet and pay the higher fee at the ballet studio close to my house. At least I know I’m going to get a right and proper ballet class, not this joke of a class I’m now attending.

This entry was posted on March 23, 2010 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Classes, The Dancing Life with tags Ballet Class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.