So, in other news...
My ballet class is not. Fun.
It's not just that it's difficult - I've done things that are both fun and difficult, or fun and frustrating before; like learning to kayak, or when I very first started karate (although that stopped being either difficult or frustrating very quickly, because my sensei knew how to teach.)
Not so with ballet; my teacher doesn't explain things very thoroughly, and has jumped right into long sequences and combinations without teaching the component steps first - "Just do it, and you'll learn it," she says. And then moves everything at a pace that I am physically unable to keep up with. Like. I literally cannot move that fast. On top of that, she wants us to hold our legs so straight our knees are locked, and wants heels turned forward farther than I am yet physically capable of, and--
--You know, it's not like I jumped into a mid- or high-level ballet class here. This is supposed to be bare-bones beginning. She always wants us to bend as far as we can, lift our legs as far as we can, etc., but the pace she sets leaves insufficient time to do so.
And.
It's not fun.
It's just frustrating.
And barring the first class, there has not been a single one where I have not walked out of the studio crying.
tl;dr, ballet class is frustrating and miserable, and the teacher doesn't know how to teach.
It's not just that it's difficult - I've done things that are both fun and difficult, or fun and frustrating before; like learning to kayak, or when I very first started karate (although that stopped being either difficult or frustrating very quickly, because my sensei knew how to teach.)
Not so with ballet; my teacher doesn't explain things very thoroughly, and has jumped right into long sequences and combinations without teaching the component steps first - "Just do it, and you'll learn it," she says. And then moves everything at a pace that I am physically unable to keep up with. Like. I literally cannot move that fast. On top of that, she wants us to hold our legs so straight our knees are locked, and wants heels turned forward farther than I am yet physically capable of, and--
--You know, it's not like I jumped into a mid- or high-level ballet class here. This is supposed to be bare-bones beginning. She always wants us to bend as far as we can, lift our legs as far as we can, etc., but the pace she sets leaves insufficient time to do so.
And.
It's not fun.
It's just frustrating.
And barring the first class, there has not been a single one where I have not walked out of the studio crying.
tl;dr, ballet class is frustrating and miserable, and the teacher doesn't know how to teach.