So I finally made it to ballet class last night. I was hanging in there pretty well, until we got to the jumping and my legs started to feel like they were going to fall off. The glissade-jete combination was brutal -- not because it was particularly hard choreography, but because by the second time through my legs felt like they weren't even attached to my body anymore, it was so hard to move them.

"Damn, I'm out of shape," I thought to myself, trying to get my breath back and stretch the rocks out of my calf muscles.

"OK," the instructor said, "Let's do tourjetes!" And suddenly, I could have danced for another hour.

Some of you probably remember that "tourjete" was the first part of my email address once upon a time, this is how much I love that move. It's hard to explain in writing. Basically it's a kind of turning leap that lands on one foot. It takes up a lot of space to do just one, too, which is why I hadn't actually done one in almost five years, even during my various attempts at doing ballet barre on my own.
I'd had my moments of awkwardness during the class while trying to bend my body in ways it had long forgotten, but this was not one of them.

Of course, I'm sitting here now with my entire lower body (not to mention my neck and shoulders) protesting the way it was treated last night. When I tried to get out of bed this morning, my calves hurt so bad I sat back down. Not that I'm at all sorry about it. I'm just sorry there's only one class a week.