The latest task for the Life Circle was
to look at areas where we were struggling and to do something that
would take you out of your comfort zone and help get those areas
moving forward.
There are two areas that are causing me
lots of problems at the moment.
The first of these is my burlesque and
the second is my fitness.
At the beginning of this year I went to
the intermediate classes to learn to fan dance. I went to 5 sessions,
with the 5th being a final practice before the Valentine's
Cabaret. With hours to go to the show, and actually being in Bristol
and 5 minutes from the venue, everything went wrong because I had a
problem with the car window and so couldn't leave the car unattended
for the best part of 7 hours. All of the effort learning the routine
so that I could perform it with the others ended up being for
nothing.
Burlesque
My problems with my burlesque fall into
3 areas.
The first is that getting to Bristol in
order to attend classes is time consuming, its an hours drive each
way.
The second is that finding the time or
space to practice is difficult. The only place I can practice at the
moment is at home in the kitchen which is the room with the biggest
amount of space. With the family around having the time and privacy
to practice and work on routines is limited.
Finally, my other big problem with my
burlesque is that as much as I would love to perform more I'm finding
that performing in the Pink Kitten shows is something that I'm happy
to do as I know the other performers. Performing in other shows I'm
more nervous about because I'm lacking the confidence that people
would want to see me perform and enjoy my performance.
My challenge is therefore
Short to medium term:
To put in about 2 hours practice a
week, either as long sessions or a series of short sessions.
To work on developing 3 fan routines.
- Small, marabou fan dance to Claire Teal's Messin' with Fire
- Silk veil fan dance to The Puppini Sisters' Moon River
- Large feather fan dance to Charles Trenet's La Mer
I've thrashed out the basics of the
first two routines and the third one is going to be a variation on
the routine that I learnt for the Valentine's show but as a solo
routine rather than a group routine.
Long term:
To perform one of these routines (Moon
River) at the Pink Kitten Halloween show.
To perform at least once to a non-Pink
Kitten audience by the end of the year.
Fitness
The main problem I have with my fitness
is that I just don't seem to have the motivation to do exercise. I'm
really struggling with this at the moment as I'm paying for gym
membership and not using it. I seriously need to start doing
something.
When I've been to the gym so far this
year its been more as my old self and not the new me. No make-up, gym
clothes as unisex as possible, hair pulled back. The other day we
made an appointment for my son to have a session with one of the
instructors so that he could be shown how to use a couple of the
weight machines. He's old enough to start using these now.
As the appointment was at lunchtime I
had to come from work and so for the first time ever I went into the
gym as Jenna. Ok, I was just standing around and watching my son
being shown how to use the equipment and not exercising myself but it
was a first step. The ground didn't open up and swallow me, nobody
commented or stared.
I want to improve my fitness so that
when I eventually get around to working towards some of my other
sporting goals then I don't have to start from scratch.
My challenge is therefore to get to the
leisure centre twice a week, once to use the gym and once to use the
pool. Any other sessions will be a bonus. At a minimum I need to have
been to the gym and pool 8 times over the course of a month.
The other challenge I'm going to set
myself, which I want to achieve by the end of April is to have gone
out for a run, the 3 mile loop I use will be enough, while wearing
mineral foundation and some basic eye shadow and lipstick so that I
can see if it will stand up to some serious exercise. If I can
achieve that and the make-up doesn't look a mess when I've finished
then I can look at setting myself the challenge of going to the gym
and exercising properly as Jenna.
Late breaking news:
I've entered the Bristol Half Marathon
on the 30th September so I now don't have an excuse for
not doing some proper training outdoors throughout the summer. I've
picked up a copy of Run Less Run Faster which requires you to do 3
days running each week and 2 other days of cross-training (swimming,
cycling). I'm actually going to aim for 3 days of cross-training (2
days of swimming for about 30 minutes and one day with a cycle ride
for an hour). My goal is to complete the race in under 2 hours which
would be similar to my personal best for that distance. I'm also
going to be raising money for CLIC. Still debating the possibility of
running in fancy dress!
Even later breaking news:
I went out for a run on Sunday (29th
April) in the winds and rain that we had. I wore my mineral
foundation and bit of lipstick, didn't go with eye shadow. After
completing the run I checked out my foundation and despite the
weather and a lot of perspiration on my face, my foundation had
stayed in place and hadn't gone patchy. A bit of dabbing with a paper
towel and it looked pretty normal. I think a quick going over with
some more powder once my face had cooled down and was nicely dry and
I'd be ready to go.
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