Zeeyau had her first ballet and Chinese dance class yesterday. Most of the kids arrived early, and lo and behold, they were all there warming up, doing stretching and practicing 劈腿, opps, 一字马 is more appropriate.

Back in Singapore, most of the preschool ballet classes don’t train kids to practice such things so early, more of incorporating little dance style, techniques in a fun curriculum. Before I signed her up, the centre already informed me that the ballet class will be drier and less fun (compared to the Chinese dance class) as they put more emphasis on building up the children foundation. True enough, the class started with revising/practicing the 7 placement of hands, then they do petit jeté (I am no ballerina nor do I understand french, I know this term because I watch Peppa Pig), 4 placements of the feet, many other actions that I am clueless with, and threw in all sorts of stretching exercises in between. Looks like they really are fixed on building a foundation that even the strongest earthquake will not weaken it.

The Chinese Dance session was indeed more interesting. First, the session was conducted with 儿歌 and not classical music (western), secondly, they were given props to handle. Chinese dance has more cute cute actions (think those funny chinese children songs mtvs that give you goose pimples and those certainly appeal to the children. Most important of all, being the Chinese national art, they must have all the proper resource and curriculum developed to train the traditional dancers of tomorrow.

Let’s see when Zeeyau can do the split.