Ballet plateau

I've hit a bit of a plateau when it comes to ballet. Last October marked two years of about two classes a week, and while I know I've really improved in that time, I've not made any real progress some time. It hasn't been my biggest focus lately, and I pretty much never practice outside of my three hours a week of class. That's not nothing, but I'm sorry that I'm not feeling much progress. Right now I consider it mostly just to be regular exercise, rather than a project I'm undertaking or a goal I'm working towards. Sadly I can't really afford to divert any more focus to it right now. I still enjoy it very much and plan to keep up with it, but I don't expect to make any great leaps forward anytime soon.

The one thing I did accomplish recently is I had "click moments"-- the experience when something suddenly becomes clear or makes sense to you --regarding how to balance in two particular instances. When performing a battement or jete, the lifting of the leg, balance is maintained by steeling the muscles in the back of my standing leg's thigh. It finally occurred to me to concentrate particular effort to that in order to stay in position without falling over. Also, when on eleve, up on the toes, to prevent falling forward, resist with the abdominals, and to prevent falling backward, resist with the gluteals and the back of the legs. It holds you in the center. It takes a pretty significant effort on both counts, but that's the way to keep correct position. It may seem obvious, but to me thinking of those isolated efforts in particular makes a big difference. I have to practice and tone those muscles in order to do it better, but having the mental understanding will aid in my ability to physically accomplish it. And that's a bit of progress I'm glad to have.