Houston Day 16- Dance School Day 2

Day two at school was pretty fun, although it's a harder slog when you're tired from the day before.  Started off with ballet again, but with a slightly different bunch of people than yesterday.  I don't quite understand the logic of who gets put in what class, but Sherese just kind of tells everyone where to go in between classes.  Ballet was followed by capoiera...I've never done capoiera before (it's a Brazilian martial art) but I've heard about it.  It seems like a cool tradition, and seems to form cool communities and have a great history and philosophy, but maybe I'd be more fascinated if someone else was doing it, not me.... After lunch (which was a trip to a nearby Turkish deli for the best sandwich I think I've ever had), I had Pilates, which was a truly special time.  The teacher was Eboni, who also taught us for Modern yesterday.  She's cool.  She seems to be able to fit in any context - she's all organic and spiritual about things when she's teaching, and yet she's been working as a backup dancer in Vegas for over four years, which from all reports is the least organic place on earth! Apparently she got that gig a whole year after she auditioned for it.  I can't even remember what I was auditioning for this time last year! Anyway, before we did this one exercise she only half-jokingly suggested we pray to whoever we pray to so we could have the strength to get through it, and we all did.  And just taking that little moment of connecting with my source of life actually gave me a strength and endurance that surprised me.  I am so pleased by how much mentally stronger I am these days.  It was an amazing class.  I was pushing myself to my very limits and wasn't too scared about it, I was not afraid of being in pain or getting tired.  The last class was improv, also facilitated by Eboni.  She started by just whispering to some people to go and copy some other people, and soon we had random groups all over the room playing in different ways while she put on the music.  I love ending the day with improv, and contemporary-style improv, not that awful commercial freestyling I had to do at Dance Factory that never failed to make me cry.  Although who knows? Maybe the new stronger me could get through one of those freestyling experiences unscathed.