I really enjoyed Anne Bass's wonderful documentary, "Dancing Across Borders".


In particular, I loved this sequence from the documentary.


It showcases an intense ballet lesson that Sokvannara "Sy" Sar, a Cambodian who came to NYC to learn ballet, takes with Olga Kostritzky, simply the best beginner ballet teacher there can be.
Notice Sy's perfect form and the controlled leg lifts. I wonder if I will ever get there.

I had no idea Google put whole documentaries online on Youtube. You can watch the entire film here:

After pining for yoga class for a month, I finally made it yesterday. Thanks mainly to a strategically timed phone call from (e:Paul), just as I was getting ready to spend the evening in the office.

In class, Erin gave us the option of trying the Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana (compass or sundial pose) or leg splits. I was secretly interested in going the splits way because of my not-so-secret obsession with ballet. But the sundial/compass pose looked pretty cool so most of the class that had an opinion at that point voted in favour of trying it out. I decided to abandon my secret agenda and went with the class.

And, wow! The Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana was totally worth going with the class chorus.



That doesn't mean I reached the full expression of the pose. Far from it. But I ALMOST got there with a yogi's choice scaled-down version. (e:Paul)-Super-Yogi later told me that this pose was tough, even for him. He has a theory that he is only good at asanas that involve upper body strength (but we all know it's just a theory and a flawed one at that, because I did watch him out of the corner of my eyes, and he totally reached the asana!)

After yoga, (e:Paul) and I hung out for dinner. We cooked palak paneer (which, I thought was a slight disaster because our most-probable guess purchase of a "paneer"-like-Italian-basket cheese pulled a meltdown in the frying pan). I should have known better than to have trusted an Italian cheese to behave like paneer or at least have tested it before throwing it all in or just used the most-probably-fry-able Goya Queso Blanco, instead. But I didn't do any of these things.

I guess there is always next time but If you will excuse me, I need to go and bask in my yoga mediocrity and palak-paneer miscalculation now.

According to wikipedia, the US was the world's top producer of cheese in 2006, making about 4,275 metric tonnes of cheese every year. However, the US didn't quite make it to the top ten cheese consumers or the top ten cheese exporters.

Where is all the extra cheese going? Cosmetics? Bricks for cheese houses?

I am absolutely fascinated with the Google doodle today! It just keeps getting better and better. I followed links and read so much about Martha Graham because of that awesome doodle.



And now, the inevitable. I want to try out Modern dance!!

that I went to Zumba today.

That makes zero sense, but welcome to my life. The genre-defying deviation was because of some eleventh hour "planning" and last-minute dashing - which didn't produce much results except for a big sign outside the yoga studio which said something to the effect of:

Class is lamentably very full today. You are welcome to join us some other day for yoga, but NOT TODAY, you tardy little rat.

I almost retraced my steps back home when I remembered the zumba poster at my ballet/salsa studio and decided to check it out instead. It was an interesting experience. Zumba is like dancing an alternate-universe crazy version of salsa mixed in liberally with aerobics and strange disco-like moves which defy categorization. I was drenched in sweat by the end of the class but didn't really feel like I learned anything new. Who knows, I might even have unlearnt some salsa steps that took me ages to get...

I really really REALLY miss Erin's yoga class. I am 99% going to the Vinyasa session tomorrow and planning on getting to class early. I hope the 1% doesn't show its evil petty face at 4:00 PM.