Andalo 2025 Day 3

Or what is commonly known as the “cursed day” beware of the 3rd day, and as if on cue at 6:30 in the morning I get a rat a tat tat on the door with the news that one of the older students has a fever even Constant our only boy seems to suffer from an unexpected stomach problem during breakfast !!! but that was soon resolved I won’t go into details.

The first lesson I observed was classical grade 3 with Meritxell who surprises me with trying to learn all the names of the younger children amazing !!! she does a great warm up in a circle with a galop and always insists on energy and strength so even from an early age they start to feel their core and posture, She gets them to lie on the floor and do the famous bridge or pelvic tilt from pilates, and work in couples one in frog and the other holding back the knees to build up resistance the same standing, once again feeling the right muscles to activate. These few exercises are repeated so it becomes routine for them even before the class starts.

Back to of my favourite phrases of the summer school is the “bistecca congelata”  she uses this image of the frozen beefsteak to feel the strength in their torso and therefore have control no jelly fish. She did exercises today for the steps that they have in group dances with Maria pia di Mauro which shows that the teachers communicate with each other to give maximum benefit for the week there was a bit of confusion although about the glissade in the dance, another sore point when teaching good job they only have two legs !! This time for the depth of the plie in the glissade she used the image of melting chocolate in the microwave not so it’s runny just soft, all this talk of food is making me hungry.

Walked quickly and decisively back to hotel to see how our student with the fever was doing I was surprised to see she had cleaned up the room and put some makeup on, the paracetamol obviously had worked but about an hour later she was asleep fully clothed, crossing fingers for tomorrow.

In the afternoon, after our now ritual of sandwiches in the gazebo  lovely, some of us took the cabinovia up to 1400 meters above sea level to walk along the newly opened  path called Megabugs it was an escape from the heat and Constant our animal expert loved it with new facts to add to his already expansive knowledge of the animal kingdom , there were various stops all with an insect theme the butterfly , dragonfly , bee and ladybug just to name a few and each one had some games, My only complaint was the fact that to fully apreciate the caterpillar you needed to buy a small wooden marble to complete the course above our budget !!

Dinner as always was fabulous with Andrea’s favourite the desserts creme caramel , tiramisu , and strudel. just to name a few.

Happy Dancing Leighx