Tiny Dancer

Eliza started dance classes today and she couldn't have been more excited.  She has been waiting to wear her dance outfits and shoes ever since we bought them about a month ago.  She in enrolled at the main studio where I took lessons growing up and, eventually, taught as an assistant.  Eliza's class has 5 girls right now, but she is in one of three preschool classes so there are plenty of other little girls dancing at the same studio.  She is in a class with the daughter of a girl I danced with on the high school drill team so it's fun to catch up with the mom while we wait for class to end.  Eliza is the youngest in her class, but she seemed to do really well socially.  She will need to work a little more on actually following the teacher's lead but she'll do just fine once she gets the hang of mimicking the actions being taught.  In class, she's learning basic dance skills such as the five ballet positions, simple tap steps, jazz dance and tumbling.  She'll be performing in two recitals - one in December and one in May.  To minimize distractions in class, observers are not allowed in the studios but there is a closed-circuit camera that broadcasts the class to the office where the parents wait.  It's pretty cool.