Correction. 

Once upon a time, I was in college, and I had some really wonderful mentor-friends in my life. (Shout out, they still are, but then they lived a stones throw away) and these mentor-friends had limitless wisdom. 

One of the friends told me something that has stuck with me ever since. A quote of sorts, to help you stay centered and realistic in circumstances when you really don’t want or feel like or things don’t seem to be that way. 

Anyway. 

“Correction is not rejection but direction.”

So often it can seem like a correction is targeted at us. That it’s a fault seen and held against us. But really, it’s simply a bit of direction. A piece of advice to help us become better; a bit of confirmation that we show enough promise to invest time and energy into. 

We had a sub in class today. I was halfway bummed I couldn’t do pointe today due to a gnarly blister that popped, but secretly a little happy cause it would have been hard. Though, I would have liked that challenge. Especially in this class. 

She went back to the basics of technique. So often I think this is overlooked at our level, when in reality it should be focused on that much more. I got a correction that my second position wasn’t wide enough. Previously I had been told it was too wide so I would have gone on the rest of my “career” thinking this smaller second was correct when really it was too small. Now I know. And it makes sense. 

Ms Munro popped her head in here and there which made me feel a bit of pressure. Especially since I wasn’t in pointe shoes and she had brought up before how I didn’t wear them. (She had seen me in the advanced class, which I don’t wear them for.) I tried to make my movements clean and intentional and still managed to flub up here and there. 

After class she came up to me and said, “you’re not even on pointe!” I thought she meant my shoes, so I started to explain. She said, “no, in your turns!” And had me go to passé and explained how I don’t get all the way over my leg so it throws me off. “You’re never going to have clean turns if you can’t do that!” She asked me why I wasn’t and I said I probably wasn’t thinking about it in the right way, which proved true, because when I did it when she asked, I did it correctly. 

I thanked her, and really was glad she said something because I had no idea. I thought my turns felt decent today. But imagine how much better and more secure they’ll be if I can implement this correction and improve. Now I want to try and work on getting all the way over my leg properly so that it becomes a habit and my muscles are worked the correct way. 

It was a different day, but really a beneficial one for me. I’m grateful I was able to make class at all, especially since there’s so few days left til tax season is up. Next week is our last full week to get it all done. Lots to do and tensions are high. 

We’re gonna make it. 

It seemed that a lot of the girls were gone today. It made jazz relatively difficult, which was unfortunate since it may be my last recital rehearsal for a while. But ms Heidi was able to give me a bit of choreography in a section we were leaving open to see what the number of dancers was gonna do. Today a decision was made and how my part has kind of gone for a few weeks now is gonna stay. I’m excited because I really like the feel of it. 

I only got to do the new bit once before we ran it for Ms Munro, and I spaced out at one part. But Ms Heidi helped me out and I made it work. I got out paper after class and wrote it down in case I’m not back again until after tax season (missing two classes.) there’s a good amount of things I need to work on and perfect that are just a bit out of my reach of what I know, but that’s what I like about this class. It sets the bar right out of my reach and challenges me to find a way to reach it. And reach it I will. 

All the girls really like this dance, myself included, and I think it’s part of what makes it great. It’s different, but we each take ownership of our separate parts and it comes together to make an interesting piece. 

I’m proud of it.