Entrechats and improvement

Tags

dance, dance class, entrechat, irish dance, irish dancing, practice, slipjig, technique

Around six times per year, my dance group’s official TCRG (certified dance teacher) comes over to teach us, through some fairly intensive weekend classes. This is mainly because there aren’t many TCRGs here in Norway, except one or two on the other side of the country, but in order to compete, you need to dance under a registered teacher.

This weekend is the first such visit of the year. Even if I’m not technically at intermediate level yet, I got to learn a new intermediate slipjig today. I really love slipjigs, even if I have a love/hate relationship with my primary slipjig (which I’m stuck with until I place in it), and while I did learn another intermediate slipjig previously, I like this one even better.

Partially I probably like it because I could actually do it. I cannot do it well yet, there are too many new things for that, but I wasn’t all that much worse than the other two, who have already moved up into intermediate a few years ago. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. At one point it was pointed out that I was the only one who pointed (oooh, the pun), even if I’m the one with the bad feet. (If only that had lasted the entire class!)

Also the dance had a lot of fiddly bits, with twists and crosskeys and diddly-dums (whatever they are really called) and other little things, but it also has lots of movement and leaps and overs. I have really grown fond of dances with that kind of movement where you can just go. I used to struggle with it, but somewhere along the way things changed.

Another thing I am excited about (at least I am now, but I was rather apprehensive when she showed us the steps) are entrechats, those jumps where the front and back foot switch places twice before landing. I have never done them before, and still cannot really, but when we used the wall bars to help us practice, I got a few really good ones. I cannot wait to master them.

Really I cannot wait to master the whole dance. I haven’t been too good at little fiddly steps in dances, but you have to start somewhere, and this one is the perfect blend of challenging and natural. I really, really like our teacher’s steps, even the primary dances. I am trying not to get too frustrated that I am still in primary, but after illness and injury and whatnot it’s just the way it is. At least my feet, which are normally very bad nowadays, behaved. I didn’t really feel much pain until just now. For those who wonder, it’s not a dance injury, and resting doesn’t seem to help. Dancing doesn’t seem to harm it either, fortunately, even if I cannot wear proper dance shoes at the moment. I won’t say that I haven’t been frustrated, but I am trying to be patient and at least not let it stress me out. That won’t accomplish anything good.

Well, that was all for today. Tomorrow’s another class, and we’ll see if my feet and head behave. I don’t deal well with not being able to do a step, and sometimes I overthink things. Well, I almost always overthink things, but sometimes I take it to extremes… I’m going to use my new foam roller, then I’m going to read or paint a little and then go to bed. I’ve slept really badly, so I need all the sleep I can get…

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Fiiiinally…!

Tags

ballet, dance, dance technique, health, irish dance, irish dancing, kathryn morgan, update

It’s been weeks of almost no exercise, combined with far too much food/snacks. As a result, the blog has been sorely neglected – I’m not good at dealing with things not going exactly according to plan, far less actually writing about it. I’ve had headaches for nearly two months, which of course meant that there was very little I had the energy to do, and being a comfort eater, I lost most of my self-restraint in the food department. And being that I didn’t know what it was, I guess I didn’t really dare to work out a lot either. It turned out to be related to my vision, and after a couple of weeks of adjusting to new glasses and de-stressing (it’s been quite stressful at work these past few months), things are improving.

I haven’t really gotten my bad eating habits quite under control yet. However, I am turning over a new leaf and doing one thing at a time instead of doing absolutely everything at once. It would perhaps be more sensible to adjust my diet first and THEN start exercising, but I know from before that if I don’t exercise, my mind won’t be in the right place to be able to keep up good eating habits. I’ve got a plan and everything:

1. Get into the habit of exercising again, but without overdoing it (it will be a new experience!)

2. Start tracking everything I eat, no matter if I go over my limit or not. Aim for a calorie amount that will keep my weight where it is, at least not gain weight.

3. Adjust the calorie limit down a bit, but not too much at a time.

I’m already working on step one. I went to both dance classes last week, plus the weekend class with our instructor from London (she comes over about six times per year to have classes with us). I almost did not go, but it turned out to be a good experience. I’ve hardly danced since the last competition in November, and for quite a few weeks I didn’t exercise at all. I can’t really keep up an entire dance class at the moment, but the teacher said I hadn’t really lost that much. I got good feedback on my first few dances as well, before my lack of stamina made my technique worsen.

I think doing ballet, even if it’s only via videos and rather sporadically these past two months, has helped a lot. My extensions and pointing are better, and I’m working on improving them further. I tend to forget to point here and there (still a vast improvement from the super-flexed back foot I used to have), particularly during changes and skips.

I’ve followed Kathryn Morgan’s beginner video classes, which are really helpful. I’ve never done ballet before, and I’ve never really consciously worked on my technique – since I’ve been absent from a lot of dance classes over the years, because of various illnesses, most of the time has been spent learning and practicing steps, not technique in general. I really like her ballet classes, and they’re a really great substitute for actual classes (which are faaaar to expensive for me). While Irish dancing and ballet is quite different in the way it looks, a lot of ballet technique is extremely useful.

Yesterday I tried one of her strength and stretch for dancers videos. Ouch! I don’t think my ankles/calves/feet have gotten such a workout in a long time, at least not when not actually dancing. I have problems keeping my heels off the floor, particularly when dancing in hard shoes (which have heels on them), and it seems these classes will really help. I think my running will benefit from it, too. I wish she had more stretching though – I’m not very flexible and find that even 10-15 minutes after class isn’t really enough. I could easily have stretched more on my own, of course, it’s not that I don’t know the necessary stretches. But I have very little patience for things like stretching when not actually following along with a video. It’s not really any excuse, I should stretch far more.

I’m thinking of doing the strength and stretch videos once a week, at least nowadays. Perhaps the Les Mills Combat workouts will have to be put on hold for a while, because I simply don’t have time. Or perhaps I can do them as warmup before the strength and stretch – I do love doing them. But with a half marathon coming up (why couldn’t my health have cooperated so I was at least somewhat prepared?) I have to focus on running in addition to dancing. I really, really, really want to move at least one or two of my dances from primary to intermediate this year, and for that I really need to improve my technique and fitness. I won’t really be in shape for the half marathon anyway, so I might as well focus on dance first.

Five days to gametime

Tags

diet, feis, irish dancing, nanowrimo, update

Apparently I have had a bit of a blogging break nowadays – not just this blog, but my book blog and writing blog as well. Perhaps it is not so strange – being that November is NaNoWriMo, I write insane amounts during my spare time (114 000 words so far in 16 days), and with the writing I have to do at work, too, my brain is just drained.

I don’t have a lot of good news either. I ate well for quite a while, but the last week has been… interesting. I’ve eaten plenty of sugar. I’ve eaten crisps. I’ve eaten plenty of carbs all around. I have not tracked anything for the past week. Aaaand surprisingly enough I feel the consequences. Not that I have put on weight (at least I don’t think so), but I am horribly bloated. My endo has acted up again, big time, and the same goes for the side-effects of my meds. The energy that I had so much of has largely gone out the window (but that might be simply exhaustion – these past few weeks have been hectic, to say the least). So today I am back on track, I hope.

Nowadays there are only two things on my mind: NaNoWriMo (short explanation: Write a novel of at least 50 000 words in November. Or you could be like me and write three…) and Mainland European Feis (Irish dance competition). NaNoWriMo is in full swing and I am finally on track, and the Feis… is five days away. It is actually this week. Oh, the nerves…

I have somewhat conflicted feelings about it. I know that I am well prepared this year – I have been practicing hard, and things went very well at the previous feis, in London in October. The transition to increased speeds has gone well – each region has their own rules regarding how fast the songs for each dance should be, and in the UK everything is danced to intermediate/open speeds, which are slower. I know that my technique is better, and my stamina is definitely better. On the other hand, I have missed three dance rehearsals the past three weeks, either because of work or because I have been ill. That is NOT very ideal right before a feis – not necessarily because it is crucial to your performance (not a lot you can fix or improve in such a short period) but because it wreaks havoc on your nerves. There is also the little fact that I am in one of the largest age groups at one of the largest levels, and the competition is far more fierce than in London. Of course, you can only do your best, and no amount of preparation can determine how well or badly the others do it.

Still, while I’ll be happy when it’s done, I’m really looking forward to it. It will be a fun trip, with great people, and I’m sure there’ll be at least some good results in the group. We will see!

Brighter days

Tags

competition, cravings, dancing, diet, irish dancing, sugar-free, training

After leaving the blog alone on such a serious note last time, it’s finally brighter days here. Quite literally, as it has been two days of sunlight after quite a few days of rain, wind, horizontal rain and some more wind. But of course, also because I’m back on track.

I have currently tracked my food for a week (this is my 8th day in a row) and been under my calorie limit every day. (Yay!) I’ve actually eaten fish twice this week, which has been ages since I did, and I am starting to figure out the whole “eating healthy while on a strict budget” thing. Frozen veggies is a life-saver in that regard. Sure, I would rather eat fresh veggies, but those are more expensive.

The best thing of all? My sugar intake has been drastically reduced. I haven’t eaten any chocolate, not even free chocolate at work meetings, and I have reduced my intake of foods with added sugar in them. Not all of them, since there’s added sugar in everything, but it’s much, much better than only a week ago.

The thing I’m the most proud of, though, is that I’ve quit soda. It’s not really related to the sugar thing, since I’ve stuck to diet soda for years now, but still. More than 1.5 litres of Pepsi Max every single day for years is not good for you, even if you take the aspartame out of the picture. Too much coffeine, too much carbonation. I’m only on my third day without soda now, but the coffeine headache has begun to go away, and so far I’ve remembered to drink other things (should be logical, but I always forget) so that I don’t get dehydrated.

Exercise is also going well. It’s less than a week until my first dance competition in three years, but so far my nerves are under control. I don’t feel confident in all my dances, but I seldom do anyway. I should probably vary my training a bit, add some strength or pilates, since it’s all dance at this point. But at the same time there’s so much dance that I can’t really add anything more to it, nor can I take anything away since I really need to know my dances. I’ll have to postpone the strength training until next week, I think.

Five days of dancing – survived

Tags

dancing, irish dancing, progress, update

It might seem overly dramatic to talk about surviving five days of dancing, but let me tell you, towards the end of the weekend it didn’t feel all that far-fetched. I did not get through it quite un-injured, but overall I’m in far better shape now, on my first dance-free day in a while, than I feared.

It’s been five quite intense days. Or rather, six of them. On Wednesday I went out for a run, for a bit more than an hour – 7.7 km and 884 kcal. On Thursday there was dance practice for two hours – 906 kcal in total. On Friday we performed at a cultural event in town. I didn’t track calories, since it was only a performance, but I guess it was half an hour or so. Not that much calorie-wise, but considering we warmed up on a stone surface and danced on a rather hard stage, it was still very hard on our feet. On Saturday we had the first of two extra dance practices, with our London-based instructor. Really, really hard – 1180 kcal. On Sunday we had five and a half hours, 2422 kcal (including 3 km very brisk walking to get to my bus in time), and yesterday we had a bit less than two hours (581 kcal). Needless to say, I’ve been able to eat quite a lot these days.

It might not sem all that much with less than 600 kcal for two hours, but calories aren’t the whole story. About half of the practice time is NOT spent dancing, since you are waiting for your turn, or you are listening to corrections, or just giving your feet a little break. The actual dance time is very intense. Particularly for your legs – with all the hard landings, stomping and fast legwork in shoes that don’t really take any impact away, Irish dancing is a recipe for shin splints galore. After some hours of dancing (like Sunday) the pain in your feet can get pretty intense.

I think I’ve managed to avoid shin splints, although my leg muscles really, really took a beating – they were so exhausted that my legs at one point actually gave out. The good (and scary) thing is that when you dance, it is almost like the muscles forget that they are tired and injured, you get so lost in the moment. It does feel rather funny when you limp onto the floor and then, suddenly, are able to jump and leap without any problems, and then you limp off again and barely manage to get to the benches. We’ll see – it might be that I just haven’t felt the worst of it yet.

I mentioned that I didn’t escape injuries, and such a typical injury for Irish dance… I managed to step on my big toe with my hard shoe, with the corner of the fibreglass heel, just where the leather of the other shoe is soft. So now I have a toenail that is rather blue, and I have troubles wearing shoes. It feels a bit unprofessional, sitting here at work without shoes, but it’s better than being in pain. It will pass soon, I think (it’s not the first time I’ve done this!).

Overall it was a very rewarding weekend. I reached my one goal for the weekend – that I would not get any comments that I needed to improve my fitness. Of course that doesn’t mean that I don’t – the more stamina and strength the better – but for the past two years she hasn’t really been able to critique my dancing because it was impossible to tell if I was doing things wrong because I was lazy or because I just could not do them because of my fitness level. So that was rather nice. Technique-wise I have improved – particularly in my turnout and lifting my back foot (and pointing it) when I dance – and while there’s still quite a bit to improve, I am happy. I was about to write “satisfied”, but I will not really be fully satisfied before my technique is really good.

I almost forgot the best part. I’ve lost weight. I’ve lost all the weight I put on while in Italy, plus some more. So now I’m officially back to where I was two years ago. In two more kilos I’ll be lighter than I’ve been in many, many years. Hopefully I’ll see that number soon 🙂