A short break

You know how I'm always complaining about my bruises and how my body hurts. Well, I think this is my worst so far. This is from sliding across the floor.

We're in full rehearsal for the show in Gasteig in three weeks, plus normal classes, so it's tuff. But fun. I have bruises on top of my other bruises right know because I keep geeting my legs tangled up in the costume. So I'm using a mild hangover to get an excuse to spend the day in bed, eat take out and watch some Doctor Who. And rest. Mostly rest.

Freak out!

Finally friday!!!

Two more classes before I can relax and put this stresdful week behind me. And freak out about next week instead.

Earlier today we had our solo performance, and there's really nothing worse than having to take class after that. Performing in general is draining emotionally and when you're alone in front of an audience doing something you've created yourself it's even worse. So taking class afterwards and being yelled at is not the ultimate thing to do. You may be so tired that you are close to tears, but for now all you can do is to suck it up and work.

UPDATED: Ballet was horrible, but then our jazzteacher brought out a cake and promised to let us eat it after class. Suddenly life became a lot easier. :)

A day in my life

Because no one cares...

I wake up around nine (sometimes eight, sometimes ten). Spend some time in bed, checking facebook on my phone or just thinking about life, the universe and everything. Then I get up and make breakfast (either yoghurt with fruits and müsli, or a bananapancake with a fruitsalad), which I usually eat in my room. Because it's cozier.

Then I find a way to make time pass until lunchtime. I go grocery shopping, I do laundry, I clean or I watch youtube videos. Mostly the last one. I also stretch a bit, roll over my foam roller or do some sit-ups.

Then I eat my lunch and leave for school.

All days are different, but in general we start 3 pm, so I'm there half an hour before to stretch and warm up and say hi to everyone. We normally don't have very long breaks between our classes. There is a running joke that each break you have time to do two out of four things; eat someting, use the toilet, change clothes or talk with your friends.

After the last class we stay a while to stretch, work on choreography and hang out for a bit until we get kicked out because the school closes.

And so I'm home between 10 and 11 pm, which is when I have dinner (most often a salad with a boiled egg and a sandwich) and read some blogs or webcomics until I fall asleep.

And here's a picture of me dressed as a pink unicorn, because wine

Vacation and procastination

First day back after a vacation is always great. Sort of. Especially if it was a two week vacation. In my opinion, two weeks is the ultimate. You get time to relax, but you don't loose too much muscles and stamina.

Anyways.

First day back your muscles are nice and relaxed. I'm always amazed by how easy it is to do splits, and how high I can kick my legs. It's so nice! And then at the same time you need to struggle to find muscles you normally tense all the time. Which is less nice.

Second day is okay. You're a bit sore, but not too much. You're still nice and loose in the joints, although they're starting to tense. You're finding the muscles (turn-out especially).

Then third day arrives. That's today, for me. Getting out of bed is painful. Moving is painful. I haven't tried to stretch too much yet, but I know it's stiff. Everything hurts. And yet it's not that bad. We only had one week off, after all.

It's just, I didn't expect to be this sore. But looking back I see why I was wrong.

There are three reasons:

1. The state of my body before vacation. I was exhausted. Mentally and physically. I became a bit unsocial, because all energy went into forcing myself to still work hard (not so fun considering last day before the vacation was valentines day and I had kind of made Boyfriend promise we would do something and then I was too tired anyways...).
Also there is a small chance that I had a mild version of kissing disease (Boyfriend has it, and even though the doctors say he's not contagious right now, he still might have been earlier, and belive it or not, we kiss a lot).

2. Pedagogic exams have started. Before the vacation, pedagogic classes were pretty chill. We would maybe move a little bit, but most of the time was spent sitting down talking. Which was nice, because it's the last classes of our longest days. Now that we have exams we can't really relax after hip-hop (mondays) or the guest teacher (tuesdays).
Modern pedagogic is not that bad. We do half a class, then we have a break, and then the other half. Jazz is worse. It's a full hour jazz class. And because it's another opportunity to work on your technique, and because you want to support the classmate who is teaching you do full out. Kind of a wake up call for the body when you've spent a week...

3. Procastinating. We have a lot coming up now. The pedagogic exams I mentioned above, a solo performance next week, Stückchenweise (which I'm not part of this time), film project deadline, dance history presentation... And because it's me (and because my last name puts me close to the top of the class list) all deadlines are pretty much at the same time. So I saw this vacation as an opportunity to be able to work on all projects and finish as much as possible before school taking my energy again.
And that totally did not happen. Because when it comes to procastinating and doing things last minute, I'm way too good to stop now. So my vacation was spent in bed, eating cake and watching Moomin episodes on youtube.

And now I'm completly stressed out. Yay!!

The thigs we do... 2.0

Woke up this morning with both my knees covered in bruises, wondering what happened yesterday. And no, I wasn't drunk.

The reason why I have all those bruises is because of floor class and probably also the guest teacher.

Floor class (for those of you unaware) is where we contemporary dancers learn how to roll over the floor. And maybe do some tricks like headstands, shoulderstands and other breakdancey stuff. It usually results in a lot of bruises in wierd places. The ting is just we're getting so used to it by now, that we don't even remember hurting ourselves. It took a lot of thinking before I rememberd that time I did that movement wrong and hit my knees in the floor.

Not to mention the bruises you get from just being plain exhausted.

And the guest teachers role in this? She had the class after floor class and decided to do a lot of floor... My muscles hurt!

Oktoberfest

Due to several cirkumstances, I'm in a bit of a pissed off mood this morning, so let's get on with the ranting!

As people may or may not be aware of is that Oktoberfest is in full swing right now.

-What is Oktoberfest? some may wonder.

Well. Oktoberfest is a beer festival that takes place in Munich during the end of september and beginning of oktober. All in all, it lasts for three weeks.

Imagine that. A party that lasts three weeks.

Appareantly the first ever oktoberfest was actually a party to celebrate a royal wedding 180 years ago.

Now this sounds fun as I write it, and it can be. Especially since my friend pointed out that the traditional costumes people wear (lederhosen and drindls) looks like the clothes the hobbits wear in Lord of the Rings, which just turns the whole thing into Bilbos birthday party.

It's just that as soon as oktoberfest starts, everything else just seems to stop being important. Which is kind of annoying when you actually live in Munich and have a normal life to lead. Even more so if you're the kind of person who gets uncomfortable in big crouds.

Now most of the oktoberfest is gatherd in one place, called the Teresienwiese, which is a big open space in the middle of town that normally stands empty. Although during oktoberfest it fills with beer tents, food stands and also a tivoli. Not to mention people. This makes it slightly easier to get on with your life.

It's just that on my way to school I have to pass nerbay that area, and all the streets around it are crowded with people blocking your way. And when I'm on my way home those people are drunk. And there's even more of them. And they can't understand why you're not joining the party, because they are happy and on vacation so everybody should be happy and on vacation. Well we're not. Some of us have school to attend to. A school where, if you show up hungover you could seriously injure yourself.

I never take the subway to school during oktoberfest. One of the stations along the way is Teresienweise, wich means you are stuck with all the same drunk people on a crowded train.

Maybe I should mention that I mostly feel irritated about oktoberfest when I'm in a hurry somwhere, or when I'm crazy tired and hungry and just want to go home.

Because it does bring one positive thing. There are so many pretty girls in drindls around, that the pervs leaves us dancers alone.

I survived!

Examination is over! And I've recoverd from my hangover that I'd like to blame on the adrenalin although there might be som alcohol involved...

So someone might be curious how a dance examination happen. Well. I woke up in the morning, rolled out of bed and in to the kitchen, where I found this:

Which immedatly made my day a little better.

After a shower and som lunch I went to school.

First we had a warmup with our modern teacher. It was the one we normally do, only our teacher had to remind us to breath a few more times than normal. And then the exam started.

Our teachers and the school headmasters filed in and sat down by the mirrors. The music was turned on. And we danced. To be honest, I don't remember much of it. I just went for it.

The hardest part was switching modes. From doing ballet exercises to do a modern combination and then a Fosse-inspired jazzcombination.

It all went well, I know that much. But I turned my brain on in jazz. I started thinking. I fucked it up. At least the last pirouette.

After one hour it was over. At first everybody cheered and hugged and jumped around, but then the adrenalin slowly disappeared and everybody turned quiet. We sat on the floor waiting for the teachers to end their conference. Dreading it, beacause when they were finished we'd have individual talks with them.

People cried. I was one of them. I'm not going to tell you why or what exacly the teachers said, but some I will share. Like my jazz teacher told me to find fire and try myself out. Which is basically code for "get out of your head". Suprise!

And I was asked why I dance. That's what's been occupying my mind pretty much ever since (save for my drunkest hours last night) and that was what I was going to write about today. But I think this post is long enough as it is, so I'll save it for later.

Anyways. The day was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and it ended with a swiss fondue party in a (swiss) classmates appartment. Pretty good ending if you ask me.

The things we do...

Told you I was bad at updating!

So it's kind of late (not really, but I have school tomorrow), and I guess that if I actually went to bed I would fall asleep... Or not.

What I wanted to talk about in this post is the crazy things we do to our bodies. And I train to be a professional dancer right now, so my opinion of crazy is probably a bit more crazy than the opinions of "normal" people. I think I draw my line somwhere around Crique de Soleil (which you should totally check out if you haven't already!).

Why do I bring this up now, you may ask. Well.. Beacause my shoulder hurts. It didn't earlier today, but now it does.
Why does your shoulder hurt, you may ask. I'll tell you.

Right now I dance more than I have ever done before! Beacause before school always got in the way. But now it's a full time dedication. And so my body is not entierly used to work so hard. But I ignore that and push myself a little harder. And it pays off, so I push myself even more. (And last friday I asked my ballet teacher if she too could push me some more). All this now results in my body starting to protest. By inflicting pain.

It all started friday morning. I woke up, my neck stiff as usual (beacause I seem completly unable to relax my neck muscles) and then I felt some pain just under my shoulderblade. I ignored it, went to school, and did one of my best ballet classes ever. But then came floor class.

For those of you who don't know it, in floor class we pretty much practice crawling, sliding and rolling on the floor.

Anyways. I lay down to practice a roll when the shoulder pain hit me like someone had stabbed me in the back with a knife. I carried on for a minute or so, ignoring the pain, but then it became too much and I had to quit. A classmate poked me in the area that hurt and gave the verdict that the muscle was extremly tense. So now I have spent the weekend lying on my massage balls, getting massage and trying to relaxe (when I wasn't out bying more massage balls). And it's better. But it still hurts if I take too deep breaths or laugh too hard.

I'm really just wondering how much I'll be able to dance tomorrow. Maybe I can tie the arm beloning to the hurting shoulder on my back and only use one arm. I could work in ballet, but i would probably kill myself in modern.

A normal person would probably stay home and relax or go to a doctor. But to quote one of my jazz teachers "If you want to dance, don't go to the doctor!"

This post got a bit depressive, so here's a picture of me when I'm bored and playing with makeup :)

All my roomates are sleeping, so I should probably go to bed too.

Good Night :)

UPDATE:

My go-to-bed-plan didn't really work out as... Well. Planned. When I was going to turn off my computer I realised I had this unfinished jigsaw puzzle  that I needed to finish. And now my vrist hurts because I had it in an uncomfortable position. Thanks, Felicia Day.