After starting ballet classes as an adult earlier this year, I discovered pretty soon that my dancing teacher was very fond of already getting me into recitals. (Something like being thrown into the thick of it as a stress-test of sorts.)
This had absolutely nothing to do with my abilities (or rather my lack thereof). The studio I go to has many different types of dancing, so it doesn't look that out of place as such.
Now, I did not think I was ready for this recital in the slightest, but what I thought was far worse than actually doing the recital, is that throughout us practicing and doing a routine and such, I discovered that I've already learnt some basics wrong.
Since essentially all the teacher's attention is taken up by all these recitals, I felt that this technical stuff kind of got swept under the rug. My literal only advantages in ballet class so far have been that I have quite strong legs and a ridiculous commitment to losing some weight to make the process of my feet, ankles, and overall leg muscles able to carry the rest of my body much easier.
My massive disadvantage, as I've also learnt from my harp teacher as well as a multiple women who taught and took lessons in reformer pilates, is that I apparently don't sit or stand straight.
So in order to combat this massive issue, I took yoga lessons (had to stop reformer pilates at least for now because of distance and money), and I wanted to resolve my other form problems by taking at least one additional ballet class somewhere else (where they specifically said they'd help with form).
Now that we do have regular classes again, I'm noticing the gap in technical ability extra hard, but I think a lot of that can be remedied by having multiple classes a week. Although I don't currently see a way for me to have more than two ballet classes a week due to my schedule + the schedules of the respective studios I'll be going to, I can add a different style of dance.
We'll see how it goes. 😬
(Incidentally, I didn't think the recital was as stressful as doing a presentation in front of class, despite the fact that there were a lot of people in the audience and I didn't really know anyone there; you can't really see them very well anyway while you're on stage, because all the lights are on us.)
