Tag: ballet class

Ballet Bourbon Balls

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's Kitchen.

Just in case you need a snappy new recipe for your New Year festivities, I have a treat for you! This bourbon ball recipe is from one of my ballet teachers from years ago and is a twist on the traditional rum balls. Every holiday season, my teacher would come to the ballet studio armed with paper plates of Christmas cookies. Her baking skills were surpassed only by her phenomenal dancing and teaching abilities. No matter how hard we tried to resist the temptation of these tasty treats that were certain to wreak havoc on our ballet bodies, the minute she pulled the cellophane off of the plates and the smell wafted across the dance floor, we all folded like a deck of cards. Her Bourbon Balls were my personal favorites, and after relentlessly pestering her for the recipe she finally capitulated....

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Where’s Your Tipping Point?

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

I heard the most fascinating story a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was leaving work early to rush off to an afternoon ballet class. It had just begun to snow, even though it was late spring. That happens a lot in Colorado. When she put her key in the ignition, a snowflake gracefully floated down from the sky and landed squarely in a chip on her windshield. As soon as that snowflake touched down, the entire windshield shattered. From one harmless little snowflake! She sat there in shock, trying to figure out what just happened. How could one delicate little frozen drop of water shatter an entire windshield? In her own words, she said, “If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I never would have believed it.” At least she wasn’t driving at the time. So, instead of going to...

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A different kind of family Christmas….

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Joyful Holidays.

Everyone has their Christmas traditions and time they spend with friends and family. Our Christmas tradition is simple; my husband and I spend a quiet Christmas together. But when my mother-in-law took a turn for the worst and my husband left town on the 23rd, my plans for Christmas suddenly and dramatically changed. No quiet Christmas Eve dinner at home. No Christmas Day champagne brunch at the Brown Palace. My Christmas just got thrown a curve ball. I knew I would be bombarded with invitations if my friends knew I would be alone on Christmas. However, I really didn’t want to be pulled into someone else’s dysfunctional family Christmas. Nor did I want to go to a movie and go out for Chinese food. I figured sitting at home watching old movies sounded like my best choice. Then I...

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Surrounded by brilliance….and neuroplasticity.

Written by Cheryl on . Posted in Cheryl's View.

Don’t you just love it when the gifts keep coming? Just as I am still marveling at my Sensei’s brilliance two weeks ago in martial arts,  I got another blast of brilliance from my ballet mistress. Dancers are visual as well as kinestetic in our learning experiences. We use our eyes as well as our bodies to learn choreography in our technique classes. We look in the mirror to check our placement as well as our movement patterns. However, sometimes we depend on the use of our eyes and the mirrors too much. For example, if we know we can look in the mirror and follow the other dancers, there is less pressure to learn the combinations. We can become complacent, and fall into the habit of watching each other instead of paying attention to the choreography. Last week our teacher gave...

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