My Love for Ballet

May 29, 2006 | Category: Reflections & Musings

When I was 7 years old, I joined the ballet because my mom thought that every little girl should have that experience being a ballerina. Really, I just reckon cause my mom never had the chance so she let her youngest be in her shoes. No, just kidding. I love ballet. It’s sad that I never pursued it as a career. Maybe one of the reasons why I never pursued was because I felt that I never really fitted in. Despite my love for this graceful and eloquent movements of the physical body, I always felt that I was the ugly duckling of the lot. All my other fellow classmates has this beautiful long hair where their mother would do these cute and dainty looking French braids. I, on the other hand had this short boyish hair and even the hairband would constantly slip off while I was dancing. I looked like a complete klutz.

Classes were held twice a week on weekdays. While other ballerinas arrived in fancy cars, I will be the only one who walked; all the way from home (which was really quite nearby). Our maid then usually accompanied me and the walk would usually take us 20 minutes. By the time we arrived, I’ll be all sweaty and it took me awhile to cool down. By then, class would have begun and I’d continue to sweat even with the air-condition switched on.

Mrs. Lu (my ballet teacher) starts off class with the demi plié then grand plié at the barre, followed by battement tendus, degages, frappes, ronds de jambe a terre and what nots. In the beginning, everything sounded so foreign to me and initially I wasn’t really motivated enough to dance since I was so shy. Later, I slowly began making friends, some whom I’m still friends with today; my love for ballet grew immensely. I never missed any of my classes after that.

My most favourite steps of them all was the pirouettes. After our routined steps, Mrs. Lu would direct the pianist (never really knew her name) to play some random classic song and told us to dance freely, using the steps that we had just learned earlier, combined with all the other steps. Soon, we found out why she did that. During exams, certain examiners would just randomly pick any ballerina to dance freely. Not that it really matter but Mrs. Lu said that we need to appreciate the music being played and to feel so we’d all dance beautifully.

Just before Mrs. Lu ends the class, each of us would find a partner and begin stretching. We were all required to do 20-25 sit ups and 10 back stretches. All the girls will start competing with each other; who will stretch back the furthest.

I remember one particular exam I did so horribly; I really hated the examiner then. She was this frumpy and grumpy looking English lady. She never smiled once the whole duration. I felt so nervous that I actually had to request a restart twice for my dance piece. I knew then I did badly and the consequences was devastating because that year, five top ballerinas who did well during exams were to be flown to England for a three week intensive course and tour of the Royal School of Ballet. I was number six. I cried for almost a week after that.

Once I got over it, I practiced harder and got a distinction in my next exam; however, they never did flew any of us to England because of financial strains. I kept my hopes high, until one day I had no choice but to quit ballet due to enormous school work and other after school activities.

Ballet slowly dissapeared out of my life until years later, when I went to watch the ballerina’s from Russia. I still love ballet, albeit I would never have the chance to dance again; except when I’m alone in my room.

One Comments

  1. Cheesecakeerian
    on May 30th, 2006
    1

    I used to learn ballet when I was younger.. Regret not continuing as well =(

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