Half year. 

Yesterday I was told I need a half year to get back where I once was. Last two years have felt like some kind of ballet coma to me and it seems I´m waking up now. 

Half year of working like crazy. I´ll more than happily take it. 

Half year. Just on time for a summer intensive hopefully? 

I'm on my way. 

I'm beautifully sore from dancing.

These days have been hard for everyone. Covid has changed our lives. There's struggle, worries, sadness and a huge insecurity about both today and future. But there's hope, kindness and solidarity too.

In this situation ballet is not the first thing you would think about. Unless you're a professional dancer or maybe just someone who has given a great portion of their time, energy and money to these hours at the barre, someone who's spending their holidays at workshops, giving up travelling, shopping, or whatever people do when taking their weeks off. Someone like me. 

In any case, dance keep us sane through this. We're dancing in every room of the house where there is just enough space for a grand battement without kicking things off the walls. We live through social media more then ever before. And even though anything on them can't quite make it up for what we're missing, I'm grateful for them more than I can ever put into words.

There are many beautiful people among dancers. Kind, humble and hard working. Never giving up. Inspiring. Able to give a heart warming smile even when they're through pain and struggle themselves. During this lockdown time there have been lots of videos made by dancers. Living room friendly training tips or even whole online classes. Ironic as it is ballet practice has never been more accessible for anyone before.

I'm happy to have a portable barre at home. Most days I wear some of my leotards and tie my hair back properly so that everything feels like a normal class as much as possible. I even wore a romantic tutu for a Giselle themed day and it felt lovely.

I'm still struggling with lots of issues in my daily life, but dance has kept me going. These days when I'm spending most of my time in one single room without my usual daily routine online classes give some structure to my days. Actually I wouldn't be able to dance this much in normal circumstances. So there's a silver lining. I hope you guys find yours. This hard time will pass and we'll come out of it one experience stronger.

Stay safe!

I'm a mess. No matter how hard I try, things get all fucked up. I try and try and try and try, more that I have ever before in my whole frickin life.

Hardly any dance at all, can't afford it now and miss it more than anzthing ever. I´m writing this in tears. Watching all the YouTube videos and Instagram posts just makes it so much worse.

This is not the life I've wanted. Time's passing and I pretend to live while I'm alive and that's it.

Sorry.
I just had to let this out.

Just a little bit of bragging: I've managed my first somersault on trampoline with landing safely on my feet! And it only was my second session. I owe big thanks to a guy doing INCREDIBLE tricks who somehow happened to volunteer in coaching me, haha. His advice made a huge difference.

I've been trying lots of new things lately as I got a one month trial Multisport card for free and it's valid until mid-January. I'm trying to get most of it. There are all kind of sport and wellness activities you can join for free with the card, so I've been to the jump park, sauna, great stretching classes, fit ballet kind of class and even a Saturday ballet class. Rather basic one, only 60 minutes, still with a great teacher. For free -who would complain!  

I'm looking forward to my usual routine with ballet classes most of the days, but I still wish our company would decide to grant permanent cards as a benefit, thin chances though...

Restarting after two weeks of being awfully green a little sick and some two months of irregular classes before has been hard. I would call today a kind of public humiliation - if anone cared enough to notice my struggle. But everyone was busy with themselves, at least I hope so...

Non-dancers will never fully understand what such first-class-in-ages takes. Your body is like an origami that went wrong. And don't let me begin about that thing in the mirror. You're weak. You're clumpsy. You're heavy. Hipo-rhino-elephant.

But that's life. You have to survive this first class in a long time and a couple of the next ones to go back to a reasonable place. Then you enjoy those five or six good days before the next virus comes to say hi.

Umm, a bit negative today? Me? Why?
Hipo-rhino-elephant is exhausted. Good night!

Things have been hard.
I've moved my dreams from "To Try" to "Didn't Work Out" list.
I'm sad. And sick and tired of the prospect of becoming an office rat nine to five again.
I'm scared. Worried about what my future job might do with my dancing. (Not that there would be much dancing in my life these days anyway and the classes I manage to go to are making me even more sad as I can see how much I've lost in flexibility, stamina, strenght, balance, you name it.)

But giving up is not an option. I will do whatever it takes to get things back in place, in dance and in everything else. I will. 

Dear ballet diary…

 My old ballet journal has ended in July, time to pick a new notebook! And I have a thing for cute stationery if you haven’t guessed already.

I don’t know about anyone among my dance friends keeping a practice log of any kind, but I have read a couple of ballet blogs and someone has probably mentioned it on Instagram too. I’ve been keeping my notes since very early on my my adult ballet journey but it used to be a bunch of rather random quick scribble in a small raggedy notebook I kept in my ballet bag.

So how to make things more systematic and as helpful as possible?  First thing – consistency. I keep record of every class or home practice. I´m trying to record things I want to go back to later. New things. Corrections and tips. Observations. Sometimes even whole combinations if I remember them after class. Ideas. Also, how the class went. What was good? Was I focused? Tired?

No need to write too much, this is supposed to be a memo and progress log, not a novel. Cute, colorful design and an eye-catching finish is a must though, it helps me to enjoy re-reading my notes and to get the most out of the effort I put in both the log and practice itself.

Do you keep a journal/dance log? What does it look like?