Besties....

miss sarah wins the ballerina princess crown

One of the awesome things about

the baby ballet classes that I teach is that my 

teaching assistant is one of my best friends.

I've known the lovely Sarah since I was 12 years old,

and getting to hang around with her in the studio 

is great fun.

Sometimes we just laugh and laugh and the kids look at us like we are loonies.

We also know the words to nearly every disney song,

(plus a few obscure ones that we taught ourselves from the disney sing a longs 

back in the day of our teenage years...

oh yes no wild parties for me, a fun friday night

meant sing a long time)

What is it with kids now a days that they dont know the old classic disney

I had about 1 student who knew Dumbo, and about 3 who knew Winnie the Pooh.

She's also been assisting for baby ballet

a lot longer than i've been teaching it,

so is a fountain of knowledge on little tricks to 

get the kids to do things 

that make me just stop and scratch my head...

who would have thought that invisible sparkly glitter

goo would be so useful at getting children to stand still! 

The Fun Teacher....

I always pegged myself as the 'fun teacher'.

I thought, I'm going to be the teacher

that all the students love,

I'm going to be so much fun.

Turns out i'm not....

I had a few comments over the last week that 

perhaps I could be a little bit nicer....

a little bit more fun.

And i went and watched another teachers class 

for inspiration,

and she was definitely the, 'fun teacher'

and I realised that i'll never be the fun teacher 

as I want a little bit more than my

ballet classes to be just fun.

I want my students to have really learned something each class,

I want them to not only learn to dance and have fun doing so

but to learn that ballet is hard work and disciplined,

that when you go and watch those

performances in the theatre you dont just think to yourself,

'oh that was pretty'

you think dancing takes a lot of hard work and dedication.

So i think that i'll shoot for the 'Firm but Fun' teacher.

and to be honest the teachers that i look back and respect

the most werent always the nicest.

Some of the down right scared me.

This journey of finding out who I am as a teacher

is going to be a long and winding road....

Little people.....

Sometimes I don't think I realise just what a difference 

I have on these little girls who come into my studio 

with hopes and dreams and expectations.

I don't know what they want from my time.

 I don't know what they think of me.

The other day i had a little girl very confused as she

couldnt figure out where i slept as i 

didnt have a bed,

turned out she thought i lived in the studio.

Last night I came home and I couldn't sleep thinking about 

a little 6 year old girl in one of my classes who I don't think I treated in the best way I could. 

She's distracted in the class and always looks for 

excuses to get out of doing the steps,

 mainly  because I don't think she connects with the way that I teach. 

So this week I got really stern with her and no patience for every story 

that had nothing to do with anything or made up problem that she had

And I think to myself, this little girl isn't connecting with me 

but instead if trying to build a bridge I disconnected her further.

Today I had another little distracted little girl in my class. 

She can't stay still, she can't listen, she's always on the go, 

it's tricky because I try and teach them the 

importance of silence and stillness in ballet as much as movement.

My assistant today was on top of her trying to gain 

her attention and keeping up on her every

 lapse of concentration, 

and I told her. 'Let's just leave her alone today, as long as 

she isn't disturbing the others let her be distracted in her own little world'

And at the end of the class the little girl came and

 gave me the biggest hug and told me she loved me, 

and I'll admit I was shocked it came out of the blue. 

This little girl who makes my time so difficult actually 

enjoys being in the studio, 

she even appreciates me as a teacher 

(that week) 

and i dont know what i did in particular to make her feel 

such gratitude today.

These little children teach me something 

new every time I see them, 

and I think of the ballet teachers that I had at their age 

and what knowledgable people they seemed to me

and although they didnt alter my life in 

a life changing way,

they did make me the person i am today.

Being the teacher....

Some times i come out of the classroom and i'm

sitting on the tube on the way home and i realise

all the things i could have done to make the class better.

Mainly its when i forget to tell them how well they have

done at working hard.

I get so focussed on the corrections and

how to make them better that

i dont take the time to commend their efforts and improvement.

and i dont want to be the kind of teacher that

never pulls a student up and always breaks them down.

Sometimes i realise that i've given some students way more

attention than others,

and after i've left i think to myself how did 'such and such'

do in class today and i realise that i dont know as

i didnt give her enough attention.

i wonder how that makes the students feel,

they probably think its because i dont like them, 

and not simply my inadequacies as a teacher,

not quite always getting the balance right just yet.

Still in London.....

i realised that i havent written about why i'm still in London even though my ballet teaching course is over.

its because i'm onto course number 2, which will run for the next 9 months.

so husband is still away sailing at sea and i'm still mining my way through the streets of London.

i'm doing my Pilates teachers course.

I looked into a lot of Pilates Teacher training courses, there are so many of them out there.

I've always enjoyed Pilates, 

i used to go to a class once a week when i was between the ages of 15-18 

in Edinburgh. My mum sent me when she heard it was good for ballet.

It was,

it changed the way that i thought about movement

and it progressed me as a dancer in so many ways.

that was 10 years ago,

i havent really done much pilates since other

than occasionally doing the few exercises that i could remember.
in fact i've really struggled to find a Pilates teacher who taught in a way that inspired me in
the way that my old teacher did.
Theres a lot of things called 'Pilates' out there that really aren't.

but for years i've been saying that when i stopped dancing i wanted
 to take up Pilates

more and think about teaching it.

So i am.

I picked a course here in London 

by the guy who trained my Pilates teacher all those years ago,

His name is Alan Herdman and he was the first person to bring Pilates to the UK.

So far the course has been everything that i've wanted.

i'm learning so much and the dynamics of the 

course suit me to a T.

Its great, i have the excuse to spend all my spare time in

the Pilates studio practising! 

Baby ballet....

Teaching baby ballet classes goes from moments 

of where your heart skips a beat because they are so dang cute...

(-whenever they hold hands and skip,

-when they remember something you said the week before that 

you thought no one had listened to,

-when you can see them making friends 

even though they dont speak the same language)

To moments of despair,

where you are the big bad wolf initiating crowd control,

making them stand still when all they want to do is wiggle

and chat with their new friends.

I really wish they understood when i tell 

them off it makes me so sad,

(and hope they realise that after they've

been told off they get so many extra nice comments

cause i feel so guilty for having been strict with them)

After the first day of lessons i told my husband

i was changing my mind about having kids...

then i sat next a little 10 month year

old boy on the tube going home who i ended

up playing with on my lap the whole journey

and changed my mind again

(dont even get me started how the adoption 

adverts in the metro make me cry and wanna

adopt all the little children)

Morocco....

We actually didnt take that many pictures in Morocco,

mainly because Husband kept getting mistaken for a Moroccan

which was pretty handy as it meant nobody bothered us.

Until we got a camera out and then every tourist tout in a mile came

out of all the nooks and crannies.

We rocketed through North Morocco in a weekend.

We hit  Tangier, Fez, Chefchaouen, Tetouan and Ceuta.

to be honest I really wasnt into the big cities.

They highlights were just Arab style markets

which i saw enough off in Cairo...nothing new.

I did love the food...mmmm Moroccan stew and couscous,

and the freshly squeezed orange juice,

at one meal after having been travelling for quite a while

husband and I downed 8 classes between us,

in about 45mins!!!!

i did love Chefchaouen though.

What an adventure it was to get there!

turns out all the regular buses (that mainly take tourists)

where sold out...uhoh...

so we managed to hang around at the local

Moroccan bus stop for a few hours and

bribe our way onto a local bus 

(i hate to think how much the 

overcharged us...it was still pretty cheap)

we ended getting on a bus to a destination

that was on no maps,

the ticket tout assured us it was only 8km 

from our destination.

So we sat on a very hot dirty bus for 5 hours 

going to the middle of nowhere...literally.

When we got there it was lovely,

in the mountains and all the buildings stonewashed light blue.

Husband also treated us to the only 5* hotel in town...

Very Exciting!!!

After spending the day haggling as lowly backpackers

it was nice to splurge out in the evening.

(still for the price of a fairly average hotel in europe)

It was definitely the highlight of my trip,

sitting on our own private balcony drinking fresh orange

watching the sun go down.