No Dance AGAIN (I'm doing surprisingly okay)

 *Another One Bites the Dust by Queen plays*

Okay, I think we're officially at 4 weeks since I've been to the dance studio. My TC has covid this time, but seems to be having mild symptoms and I WASN'T THE ONE WHO GAVE IT TO THEM so phew. Surprisingly, I don't feel too stressed about it. I've been working hard at home and we still have time.

A cool thing that ended up happening because of the sickness was that I was invited to complete an assignment that the nationals dancers were assigned (They are the class after my private). We had to record ourselves drilling different pieces of our steps as well as do one step without music. I NEVER DO THIS. Even when I was younger and thinner, I used to hate watching my recital dance after the big day was over. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm so self conscious about my body. Even after doing the cross training problem there are things that jiggle and I'm trying to tell myself I can do things with this almost 33 year old body that I couldn't when I was 16 or even 29. Sometimes its hard. Long story short, there were some things that made me cringe, but there were so many positives too.

For one, my turn out and crossing are so much better than when I started back up in December and really the crossing especially has vastly improved since before I had Dominik. I was also really pleased with my hard shoe drills. I feel like I hit the vast majority of my beats and my timing is decent. For soft shoe I used to struggle with intricate things, those balletic like beats that slip jig is famous for, and it's starting to not feel frantic and clunky. I did a full step (granted in sneakers) but I didn't feel gassed at all so hopefully all of that stamina work is starting to work.

There's still plenty to work on, though. When I videotaped my treble jig and later a moving slip jig step, I noticed that I need to extend and straighten my knees on moving pieces. My jump 23s are shit and my clicks could be higher. Things that I can definitely be more mindful of in the next 40 days. I also notoriously practice stationary things because I don't have much room, but I'm going to have to get creative.

Overall, I felt really happy to be included and I think the whole exercise made me open to recording myself more. Maybe not weekly, but once a month or something to see progress.

For now I need to wrap myself (and Dom and my TCs) in bubble wrap so I can get to the studio.

Kay