Over the course of the week I have collectively thirteen hours of Russian language classes. Morgan (my roommate and traveling partner) and I have nights where we are swamped with homework and its all very overwhelming. The frustrating thing is that our teacher isn't teaching us how to carry on a conversation! He's teaching us only grammar and the proper way to end words depending on whether it's a feminine, masculine, neutral or plural word. So, allow me to just pat myself (and Morgan) on the back. We've both had several semi-successful conversations with Russian speakers. And all that is stuff that we've taught ourselves, or that Sophia (my other roommate, who won a scholarship to study Russian and ballet for 6 weeks this summer) has taught us.

    You see it's very strange. Here there are lots of people I'd like to talk to. But they speak Japanese, Italian or some other language, while I speak English. So since we are all learning Russian, it only makes sense that the language I'd use to communicate with these people is Russian. I don't know, but it's just so strange having Russian be the common language. I'm used to people struggling to communicate with me in broken English. It's honestly, very unsettling how used to being the "Alpha Dog" I am. I'm not used to demeaning looks, and not being fluent in the common language. It's a growing experience. 

 

     Ballet classes, are definitely different than what I'm used to. Our teacher is very small, pretty and young. She is always dressed very nicely and has a long braid of shiny hair down her back. You'd expect her to be a sweet little lady with the personality of a little girl. But, no. She's the most terrifying woman. The majority of the class she is yelling ( I kid you not, YELLING) corrections and criticism. And she has no problem with hands on corrections. Common corrections that I get are to turn out my leg (which means she's going to put her hands on my shin/calf and forcibly turn my leg around. I can usually feel the cartilage in my knee stretching painfully when she does this.) and to point my foot more (which means shes going to try and bend my foot in half. My right arch is bruised from her thumbs). She hits me, scratches me, and yesterday she told Morgan and I that we were stupid.

 

     This may be shocking. But, basically everywhere but America trains their dancers like this. And here's a couple reasons why: Lawyers and the fear of being put out of your comfort. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I love when my ballet teachers yell. I love being forced to be better. Because rather than someone saying, "Try and do it better." Wouldn't you like someone to say, "Do it better." Just that alone makes me want to try harder. Like they just know that I'm capable of perfect ballet and they won't take anything less. I really appreciate this method and if you have the stomach for it, I think that's how everyone should be trained if they're serious.

 

     All in all, I've been here a total of two weeks and some days are better than others, but I'm still wildly happy and I'm going to soak up every bit of knowledge the Bolshoi Academy has to offer me.

 

 Morgan, Me and Sophia