Morning ballet warm-up:

-fouettes: with working leg prepped in front tendu en l'aire, compress and coil inner thighs together, then spring out
-tendu: in a microscopic dissection of this move, the last point of interest would be the push of the top of the ankle out
-in transfer from two legs to one leg: do not dislocate the body parts; maintain the alignment; move all as one

Evening ballet class:

-I taught it.

Ballerina Turns Bunny

ie: Angelina ventures into hip hop land

-up! and up! and up! find the groove
-hovering foot move: the walk that gets you nowhere
-the shamrock: pivot pivot up!
-the teacher's positive attitude is contagious

The style is foreign; for the ballerina, it takes almost the whole class to finally feel comfortable in it.

-ballet is not about elevation; it is about lengthening/extending
-hold the positions; enjoy the positions
-renversé: do not think about turning; hook back leg
-chainés: using forceful tombé to mount into chainé
-the overpowering aroma of curry wafts in with curls

I've got fouettés and beets on my mind.

-fouetté: literally meaning "whipped", in which both the working and supporting legs work in concert to make a quick rotation of the hips; allows changes of internal leg-to-body* relations (eg: from "front tendu" to arabesque) via movement of the hips rather than of the working leg; not to be confused with fouetté turns
-beets: a strange bulbous root vegetable that is more fun to take pictures of than to cook and eat; not to be confused with beats

*where the body is a manifestation of the self; (eg: in "front tendu" position, the leg is extended to the front with respect to one's self, or body**)

**the other case in which we speak of directional relations is with respect to the audience (external); ie: self-to-audience relations (eg: croisé, in which the legs-- and thus the self-- are closed/crossed w.r.t. the audience)***

***the next level of complexity in conceptualizing directions in ballet would be to compound the two basic types of directional relations (eg: "front tendu croisé", in which the leg is in front wrt the self and the self is "closed" wrt the audience)

In summary, there are two basic types of directional relations in ballet: internal (leg-to-self) and external (self-to-audience). The two types may be compounded into a complex directional relation. Internal directional changes are provided by movement of either the working leg or the hips (ie: fouetté). Oh, and beets.

The Kostrovitskaya manual revealed some critical training tips, but not enough to encourage progress. And why would it? During the Cold War, information was at a premium. Ballet was just another area in which Russians could (and did) outdo the West.

On day 3 of the year 2012, an adagio declassified: grand pas de basque

Part I:
(from corner 8) grand pas de basque to piquE attitude (to corner 2; arms either immediately to 3rd upon developpE, or 1st to 3rd to 2nd); promenade enveloppE to passE/high arm (to corner 8); lower to pliE-tendu-croisE (arms low/open); 1/4 pivot (to corner 6) bringing arms to 2nd (still in pliE), lift leg & 1/2 fouettE into attitude (to corner 2); pas de bourEe (to corner 8) and lower to 5th; forward cambrE bringing arms to 3rd; back cambrE with audience arm high, away arm in 1st;

Part 2:
(from corner 8) pas de basque en l'aire to piquE attitude (to corner 2); 1/2 pirouette en dehors (arms in 1st) to corner 8; repeat