i always thought
if i had a daughter
that i'd put her in ballet classes
then
in more recent years
well, not really recent, but ya know
i thought, no
martial arts
but now
mute point really
but
rhythmic gymnastics

ballet
it's graceful and all
but it's based on this straight line principle
i mean
when you're dancing high level
you're breaking from that
but, no, actually, not really
when i saw oksana dance it was kinda almost not ballet
it was weird and different and exciting
and when i read she had trained in rhythmic gymnastics
i thought, yeah, that's gotta be the difference

and then i went looking around the ballerinas of instagram
and i found marachok
and she's different more muscular
more athletic
less liquid but she had some elements that were the same
that divergence from the line
and yeah
it turns out
as i suspected
rhythmic gymnastics background

let me explain about the line

there is a string that runs up through the center of your body
out through the top of your head
and
that string should be pretty tight
pulling you up
there's a tautness to ballet

here
look
i'll find an example

i only watched the first 7 minutes of this but it seems a good illustration

ok now
same kind of dancing but no string

different kind of dancing, lack of string much more obvious

goodnight sweetheart
i love you very much