Personal Rival....

So i have another dancer in the company who is my Personal Rival.

She doesnt know it.

In fact, she's a pretty good friend of mine.

But in my head we are Rivals.

We are similar body shapes and standards (in my opinion)

and so in my head she is My Competition.

If they are casting for a role,

most likely they will think between me and her.

And sometimes she 'wins', and thats okay,

because she is a hard worker and totally deserves it,

but i think to myself what can i do to improve so that i get picked next time.

I think its just a way for me to keep trying to improve myself.

Keeping myself on my toes..

(hehe...i couldnt resist!)

At any rate,

she 'won' the last two roles i had my eye on,

but i found out yesterday i will be dancing the Spanish solo in Nutcracker,

so i just earned a 'notch' on my belt.....

(picture from National Ballet Of Cuba)

Dancers Diets....

One of the most common questions

i get asked as a dancer is if i have to have a special diet?

I've never had a weight issue,

so the answer to that is normally no.

But here is what i have eaten today -

a home made apple cake

(yes the whole thing, i had half for lunch and half for dinner,

i was originally going to make it to share with my roommates until

i tasted how good it was)

half a tub of cream cheese eaten with breadsticks.

a can of mountain dew.

yeah....

thats it....

hehe...

i promise this isnt my

normal daily intake of food.

Normally there are some carbs, some veggies

and what not.

i'm pretty sensible.

But every now and then a girl ought to be

allowed to eat a whole cake and enjoy it

without a shred of remorse....

Right?

Vintage Grandparents....

I just discovered these photos that someone

in my family put up on photobucket....

that i've never seen before

Let me tell you a little bit about my Grandad,

he ran away from home and joined the Navy when he was 13 years old.

Look at these cute pictures of him....

just a kid.

and here he is with my Nana on their wedding day....babies....

My granddad, sailor that he was after meeting my nana went out and got her name tattooed on his arm.

My nana, good Christian girl that she was mortified!

And is a picture of them with me at my sisters wedding last month.

Injury Time....

I came home from performance tonight and plonked myself on the sofa and as i sat with an ice pack on one part of my body whilst rubbing cream into another,

my roommate asked why do dancers get injured so often?

(i guess he hears me complaining a lot!)

I thought about the answer.

Some injuries come from unpreventable accidents,

Some come from poor technical training.

Some come from poorly looking after your body.

Some come from general daily wear and tear.

Some come from being over-worked.

i pulled my groin muscle yesterday in performance.

This one was from not looking after my body.

I had a gap (maybe 15mins) between two of the dance parts i do.

The music inbetween is almost trance-like,

i sat down in the wings and i began to doze off....

and then Wham!

i hear my music,

i run on stage,

kick my leg up 180 degrees,

and pop!

There it goes.

Captain Tim was informed and

told me i should take a couple of days off.

Yeah right!

A couple of days off in the middle of performances for a measly groin strain.

I told him i'll survive,

groin strains are just an annoyance more than anything

(am i using the word groin too much)

cause they take a while to recover,

but can be danced through.

I remember once going to a Physio

when i had back problems and he noted that i had

pulled my hamstring during the last week since i had seen him.

'oh yeah, that....it heal'

He informed me that people came to him specifically for that problem,

really?

a hamstring pull just seems to me pat and parcel

with kicking my leg around like crazy,

it happens,

it will recover.

My knee on the other hand bothers me.

Its been a long term thing now (6months)

I'm being careful to not push it too much,

keep it always warm,

do my physio exercises.

I had to pay to go see a physiotherapist on my own time during my holidays.

I could only afford one session although he told me i needed follow-ups

Injuries could probably be prevented/looked after better if their was more money for the dance companies too.

The bigger better funded ones probably have better facilities to care for their dancers,

but go down the scale a little and you'll find dancers being given no care for their injuries at all and being pushed to work through them.

I had a friend made to dance the Black Swan on a broken toe recently,

another from another company crying down the phone

to me this week that all her toenails had fallen off and they wouldnt let her take sick leave....

she could barely walk, never mind make it to rehearsals.

(i know this isnt the best of photos, it was taken just quickly

before curtain up, one of my legs looks huge and the other one tiny!)

My Family and other Animals....

I come from a large family.

2 parents

10kids

(5girls and 5boys)

I find this a useful topic to bring up on a dull first date,

it gets an interesting reaction and then i can waste ample

time talking about my various siblings.

Its not very often that we are all together anymore,

my sisters wedding was the nearest we've been for a while

(missing one brother who is on a mission for my church)

and because we cant stay serious for very long.....

Movie under the Moon....

I came home from work last night to find that my roommate

had borrowed a projector and set up a mini-cinema on our balcony.

It was lovely to sit out side under the moon

(i would say stars but in Cairo its pretty hard to see them)

and eat cold pizza

(it had been warm but by the time i got there it was cold)

and the movie we watched....

O Brother Where Art Thou,

its a corker!

Fight talk....

Ugh

I hate fighting.

When mean and nasty things are

said in the heat of the moment.

And when the temperature has cooled down

and we have all made nice,

do we just forget those things?

Do we put them down to just being 'fight talk'

and move on and forget about it.

Or do we have to stop and think if those words are the truth,

and they bubbled up to the surface when the person felt pushed to the edge,

but actually they are the root of what the person really thinks?

Today,

the words are still hurting,

they have left bruises from the fight.

But bruises heal,

right?

I want a House Hippo....

A friend of mine works in a school here and

was sharing with me this video that she showed to her 2nd Grade class.

The point being that they shouldn't believe everything

that they see on tv as it can be edited an doctored.

Unfortunately,

all they came away with was that they thought the Hippo was cute

and how they really want a pet Hippo.

Me too....

I want a House Hippo.

So cute!

Magic Music....

Dang, i just heard this song today,

and i honestly listened to it on repeat about 5 times.

It just sums up a whole bunch of feelings that i have right now.

it's been a while since a song has done that for me,

and this one probably wont do it for you....

it isnt it magic when a song does that?

like this person on the other side of the world

who you will never know

knows exactly what it feels like to be you

at this precise moment.

Isn't it a little bit comforting to know that

other people out there

have been through and feel and understand

what i'm going through.

It makes me feel a little bit less small,

and a little bit less odd....

Shape-Shifting....

This summer was the first summer

where i really took a break from ballet.

In 6 weeks i did about 3 ballet classes.

The main reason being i'd had some knee pain that i wanted to rest,

i took 3 weeks off and when i did a class and the pain was still there

i took the next 3 weeks off too and had a

physiotherapist check it over

(no major problems just over-straining).

Being the first time i completely let myself go (ever)

its also the first time i've really had difficulty getting

myself back into shape after a holiday.

My muscles have withered away to sponge

and my flexibility has aged like an old woman.

And although i've found it frustration i've so

found it extremely interesting how in tune it has made me with my body.

I feel which muscle groups are responding slower,

which side of my body needs to be stretched more...

and i'm kinda enjoying the re-learning of it.

It scares me too though,

as when i dont dance there isn't any form of exercise that i actually

like doing, and one day i'm going to have to stop dancing

in the extreme way in which i do it now...

and its the first time that i've realised that my body is going to change

and i wont be able to do things like

touch my toes or balance around on leg.....

but then its probably gonna feel good not to have to push

my body to ridiculous limits on a regular basis too right?

(picture Boston Ballet)

Idealist....

"It's true i'm an idealist, but i've never had the courage to believe in nothing"

Man of la Mancha (movie)