Ballet

Well, yesterday, I was engrossed in a three and half hour ballet performance, only to miss seeing my dude, Kotooshu beat Asashoryu. Before I talk about how that is just about the greatest thing I’ve heard all month (the beating, not the missing), first, a short rumination on the ballet:

I went to the ballet to see my young apprentice, Mitsuki kun, dance. Mitsuki kun is in the second grade and has been, under the thumb of his parents, studying English with me for an hour every Saturday morning. Mitsuki is a bit of a Renaissance man as he dances, plays soccer, studies English, and does something else (flower-arranging or something, I forget). Anyway, Mitsuki’s part of the dance was limited, very limited, but the other three and half hours were filled with, you know, ballet. So let’s make some observations:

1. Japanese women are beautiful in general, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that Japanese women ballet dancers are even more beautiful. They are and I was surprised.
2. I’ll allow that men dancing can be a normal, healthy heterosexual pursuit. Until you put your hands on your hips and dance. Then it is not a healthy, heterosexual pursuit. 
3. I think Mitsuki has it figured out though as there are only two boys in his class and like 40 girls. And the other boy is a total dunce, from what I could tell. Mitsuki kun has his run of the show. 
4. Walking on your toes has got to be hard. 
5. This isn’t about ballet but whatever: when you sign up to go out with a Japanese family, count on at least five hours. And at least 2 of those hours will be dicking around.
6. As far as the glass shoes go in Cinderella, is that a special kind of glass? Because it seems to be that normal glass would, you know, break. 
7. Japanese people won’t shut up during ballet performances, especially old people.

So all that to say, I missed Kotooshu have his day on the Dohyo, and will redeem myself by being sure to not miss it this afternoon.