Dance is life [OPEN!]

[KAYDEN MACKENZIE]

D A N C E • I S • L I F E

Kayden just needed to clear her head. She hadn't gotten out much, other than going to work and that saturday when she'd hung out while Cleo gave one of the most un-lesson-y swim lessons she had ever seen. Cleo just wasn't the swim teacher type. She just wanted to play once she got in the water. Kayden had expected that, but who knew? Cleo could have surprised them all.

Either way, Kayden needed to do some dancing. It had been so long since she had done pointe. When she was pregnant with Jenica, she had been able to continue with pointe for a while, but then she was far enough along that she was told to stop by her doctor. At that point, her pointe shoes were tucked onto a shelf, waiting to be used again, and she stuck to ballet flats.

Now, after everything that had happened, she had finally been given a clean bill of health from her doctor, but she hadn't really been able to get over to the dance studio and get a studio room to herself. Usually, there were classes going on in all of the rooms. Today, however, she had managed to get one of the smaller rehearsal spaces.

Just slipping her feet into her pointe shoes felt like she was starting to be normal again. She would never be the same, of course, but she would be closer to normal. She laced the slippers slowly before slipping to her feet, warming up and bouncing up en pointe. Finally- she felt like she was home. Fully home. Using the remote, she started the music, before fixing her sweatpant capris and t-shirt and proceeding to immerse herself in the music.

She didn't push herself too far, but she was still a very talented dancer, so the dance was smooth and seamless. At least, until she stepped wrong and fell to the floor.

For a long time she just lay there before pushing herself up to a sitting position, and pulling her knees to her chest. She wasn't sure what to do. She never knew what to do anymore, so for now, she would sit.

[MIRIAM "EVA" ASMEROM]

I wonder what it’s like to have it all
To never be afraid that I would fall

[/i]
------------------------------------------------------------[/center][/color]

Ballet. Harrison wanted her to do ballet. First the sleeveless leotard, now this? What next, going to raves to build her endurance for the uneven bars? God, Eva just hated this guy sometimes. And yet here she was, hauling her ass to some dumb dance studio to ask some lady she didn’t know and was probably going to despise to help her be more graceful.

Now, Miriam Asmerom didn’t pretend to know everything about gymnastics. But she’d been slaving away at this godforsaken sport for the past ten years, and she was pretty sure it was safe to say that she knew a fair bit about herself as an athlete. For starters, she knew that when she’d signed up for gymnastics lessons back in Michigan as a dumb little third grader, she’d signed up to be a gymnast. Not a fucking ballerina.

Ballerinas weren’t gymnasts. Gymnasts ran really fast and jumped over really tall things, and flipped so quickly in the air that spectators’ eyes couldn’t follow the movements, and gymnasts did handstands on top of horizontal flagpoles and lifted weights and ran miles, and what exactly did ballerinas do? Ballerinas tiptoed around and did cutesy little spins and wore tutus, and tons of assorted other costume pieces that made Eva want to puke whenever she saw them. Ballerinas were just dumb. Eva was an athlete; she had toned, rock-hard muscles, a militant low-carb diet, and an Olympic silver medal, and that was only because of that stupid little fucking piece of metal. So there.

And what could a stupid ballerina possibly teach her? Eva Asmerom was a powerful athlete, aggressive in all of her tricks, her hands and feet attacking the beam or table or bars or floor or wherever it was she happened to be like predators to prey. She couldn’t have given less of a fuck about “grace”, “beauty”, “style”, or whatever else it was that Harrison had been babbling on about. Eva did force, not beauty. She was training for international competitions, not fucking beauty pageants.

Also, this little adventure meant she had to interact with someone. Probably someone stupid. Because she’d never met a smart ballerina. Granted, she hadn’t met many ballerinas, since they were things she tended to avoid like the plague. But this wasn’t stupid bio class. Fuck sample sizes.

She ducked into the dance studio hesitantly, attempting to psych herself up for this oncoming attempt at face-to-face human conversation. As usual, it didn’t work. She entered the dance studio as unprepared as she’d ever been for anything. ”Uh…hey,”

[/color] said her voice in its natural disinterested monotone, though within her, the curiosity was raging. What was this ballerina lady doing on the floor? Was she even like, a teacher here? Not that Eva cared much. She was fairly certain that, whether student or teacher, any endeavor with this woman would end up completely pointless. God, she really did not want to learn ballet. ”Uh, yeah, hi. Eva Asmerom. Professional gymnast. Coach wanted me to come over here and, uh, see if you or someone here could teach me some ballet.”[/color] She shrugged, to accentuate the fact that she really didn’t give a fuck about this. ”I mean, because of like, grace. And style, and stuff. Because he like, doesn’t think my routines have enough of it. Or something.” She felt her eyes rolling before she could stop them.

”So, uh…you busy? Or…what?” She felt the awkwardness simmering like boiling water in her head, but fuck it. She’d learned long ago that Eva Asmerom and awkwardness tended to coexist completely when others were around. Particularly when first impressions were like, a thing.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote]

------------------------------------------------------------
And I don’t think I’ve ever known a time
That I was part of the in crowd

[/font][/center][/size][/i][/color]

Tag:Kayden
Words:651
Notes:If you’d rather I just make this a separate thread that can definitely happen for sure
Credit:Lyrics are "The In Crowd" by Mitchell Musso. This template is by Monica of OUAC and stealing is not at all a fun thing to do so how about we don’t do that ok cool thanx xoxoxoxo

[/font][/size]

[KAYDEN MACKENZIE]

D A N C E • I S • L I F E

Kayden didn't really have long to sit and brood. Her attention was quickly diverted to other, more pressing endeavors. For example, the young lady that had just walked into the studio. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there, which would explain the tinge of attitude that laced her words. Kayden made no move, but rather watched the girl. Posture was decent, though she definitely was not a dancer. Her gait lacked the length that dancing tended to instill in people. Her steps were measured, short, and were there for the sole reason of getting her from one point to the other. There was no flow to it.

Quirking an eyebrow, Kayden listened as the girl explained why she was there. Then it clicked. Was that today? Well crap, she'd forgotten. "Bloody- You're the girl? I'd forgotten that was today... I'm sorry... You're sure that was today?" She pushed herself to her feet, rolling first up to one knee before standing completely. She hurried to dig her phone out of her bag and sighed when she saw the date. Yes, that was today. Well that was just brilliant. She'd left all of her notes back in her apartment. She turned to look at the girl again, "Brilliant. I've left my notes at home, so we'll just start with basics today. I'm Kayden." She held out her hand, then motioned to where her own things were, "You can set anything you want down over there. You probably don't have ballet slippers, do you?" Of course she wouldn't. Why on earth would this gymnast have ballet shoes? "You can use mine for now." She dug in her bag, pulled out her pair of regular ballet slippers, and held them out to Eva. "Hopefully they fit."

Kayden tossed her phone back in her bag and zipped it up, "Ready to learn some basics?" She had this sinking feeling that this entire session was going to be like pulling teeth. "Now, your coach asked me to help incorporate some more dance into your floor routine... Before it was very technical and didn't flow. We'll try to fix that, but first you need the basic skills to be able to add it into your existing repertoire. We'll start with some stretches to make sure you're warmed up." She rolled her shoulders back once, then went to change the music. She switched to a softer classical piece, a Pachelbel composition, then moved over to sit in the middle of the floor, stretching just the same way that any athlete would before working out.

After stretching, she moved to the barre to wait for Eva. "Now we'll just work on learning basic foot positions. You may want to use the barre for balance on some of these." One at a time, Kayden showed her the foot positions, her own hand on the barre so that Eva wouldn't feel like she needed to show off and do this without it. It was hard enough to do first position with the barre when first starting, and having trouble with the basics was a sure-fire way to get Eva to give up, she was sure. "I know, this may seem dumb, but if you think about it, how different is it to do ballet from gymnastics? How many times have you had your coach tell you to watch the placement of your feet during a landing or prepping for a stunt?"