Sunday, October 16, 2016

En Pointe

Last weekend marked an enormous milestone for Kate. Like, seriously out of her whole life, probably second only to her wedding will be. She had been counting down to that date for at least three months. It was like Christmas, only even Christmas can't hold a candle to this, so I'm afraid the next several Christmases will be anti-climactic in comparison.

Mostly I love that she walked into her pointe shoe fitting in soccer cleats. Because I took her straight from the soccer field after her second-to-last game of the season.
 Kate, however, did not love showing up in soccer gear. It was neither refined nor ladylike and she didn't have time to take a shower.
 But the soccer cleats came off and the pointe shoes went on, and then she was smiling again!


 Then they were off to the studio for their first class on pointe shoes. I learned so much. I am not a dancer myself (can't walk & chew gum), but it is so amazing to watch these little girls and what they can do. Of course it's the result of hard work - they dance for 4 hours a week and more in the summer, but it's still incredible to watch how fast they learn and grow!

 Their teacher had to find their natural arch and then BREAK the shoe. I kid you not, we dropped the girls' college funds on these shoes and then brought them back to the studio to snap them in half! So maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but we still nearly fainted.
Then she taught them how to lace them properly, which is another art within itself and requires lessons. I seriously would have wrapped them all the way up my calf and then tied them in a big loopy bow. No? Apparently not.



At the end of the day, Kate told me, "I've been waiting for this day since I was born. This is the best day of my life!" She is right; she was made for this. It's so wonderful that she's found her passion - that I can say, "Remember you have ballet today" and she'll leap out of bed shouting, "Hooray!" (I wish my kids or really any of my students felt that way about piano!) I don't know if there's really anything I can do for 2 hours at a time, except sleep and eat and maybe read, but her child-size attention span doesn't apply here. I love that she has a love. And I wish I could do something half as athletic or graceful!

0 sweet nothings: