those who were seen dancing

I keep talking about climbing a mountain. Assuming we can get up to Mauna Kea early enough in the day while I'm in HI next month, I can of course walk up the summit trail. But I'm thinking more serious. Like. Kilimanjaro. It's apparently not a technically difficult climb (that is, I don't need to be a good rock climber, which I'm not) so much as a grueling ordeal of altitude. *

Plus, you know. Giraffes.

So let's say I want to do this next year. What do you do to prep for mountain trekking? I suppose I should find this out.

* Funny thing: I appear to be indifferent to altitude up to 12-13K feet. Proves the relative randomness of altitude sickness, that an asthmatic (with a history of smoking, no less) who lives close to sea level is all "whatevs" at that height. Higher apparently everyone starts feeling it.

I stayed at the office until 4am this morning (from 2pm or so yesterday). Then got back up at 9 for a conference call.

At 9, my entire body was like: um, no. It wasn't hard to wake up, but any part I'd worked at the gym or swinging clubs (which I've been avoiding for awhile) in the past few days was having none of this whole moving around thing.

Then! I napped again until another conference call just now. This time when I woke, my entire body felt just fine. Because sleep? Heals. Unbelievably efficiently.

The problem with the gym is that it makes me hungry. Like. Giant sucking void of food-wanting. Persistent hind-brain messages like We need pasta. With alfredo. NOW. This would be fine if I went to the gym at like 5pm, but I keep going at 8 or 9 (after a perfectly sufficient dinner, mind you), and I don't want to be eating again at 10. I do that enough with dance stuff. It keeps me up late. And I don't usually have pasta in the fridge.

So, yeah. That's annoying.

Also annoying is the back-of-my-brain reaction (namely, glee... tempered with front-of-brain horror) to the realization that I'm going to shrink again this summer. I'm taking 3 dance classes in addition to the usual practice schedule (though I expect a light performance schedule), and trying to make it to the gym for 2-4 hours each week. Past experience shows that new activity, especially 5 hours a week of it, will make my body different. Past experience also shows that I may lose my shit when that happens. I hope it will be better if I'm prepared for it, and at least I know now that I'll stabilize size-wise within a year. If I keep feeding the giant sucking void, maybe I'll only shrink at the rate my clothes wear out. I hate wasting perfectly cute clothes.

Other than these persistent annoyances, the gym continues to be a rocking good time. I found a stability ball exercise that hits a lot of what I need to do floor work well, and I had the pleasure of surprising little bitty trainer boy with my core strength. It's so loud and busy at the gym, but what struck me tonight was just how peaceful it is [If you stay away from the people trying to destroy their joints on the elliptical machines. I hope we have universal health care before they get old, cause some of them are just leaping at those machines. They sound like storm troopers.]. Focusing on form and counting repetitions in this strange chaotic setting reminds me of going out to practice tai chi in the middle of the theater building at BillnMary - in some ways the internal quiet is more intense for being hard-won. At home I can create the exact right environment to focus in, but having to work for that focus is - well, it's another dimension of working out, I suppose. I like it.

In other news, I realized this week that I feel called to coaching as a career. It's unclear exactly what form that needs to take, but I'm sure that path is not old-school plan-driven project management. And that narrows the field of my job search. Mostly, though - it excites me, and that's... heh, it's exciting.

I'm starting to look forward to my life again.

Guess what I did last night?

No, really. Guess!

You didn't guess "joined a gym", did you? Because if you know me at all, you know of my passionate hate for the gym mindset. The pain = gain. The appearance = health. All the wildly simplified equations and just the general unpleasantness of the places. Ick.

Anyhow. I joined a gym. My trainer has disappeared off the face of the earth, and I need program design help to figure out some of the dance-prep strengthening I want to do. So when arovd suggested that we practice together in her gym's (fantastic slippy-floored, mirrored, nicely lit) space... eh, okay.

The environment is... not as bad as I expected. There was one poster that bothered me enough I. Um. Sorta hid it. It was a small act of subversion. We went to a yogaish workout class that I enjoyed, and the space really is fantastic. The people there were reasonably diverse. The guy who showed me around was remarkably tolerant of my continuous ripping on his profession. We'll see if the trainer recommendation he made pans out.

There are a LOT of treadmills. That? Is creepy.

My weekend actually started Wednesday with dance practice. ( What we do to prep for a big performance, if you're interested ) After practice, we drove to the wilds of Chesterfield because garrity and family are swell. And I went to bed way early because, I think, I was still healing (I am a little in awe of people who get tattoos that take several hours, given that my own recovery time was so long).

Thursday, as mentioned, cutegaychick and I went to Natural Bridge to act like dorks.

Friday was basically - get up, run mad errands, get in car at lunch time, drive to DC. We listened to the Buffy musical on the ride up, which made at least an hour of our three hour tour go faster and more fun-like. After that and tech and trying to get food and getting dressed and watching all of the other performances, I really don't remember how the show went. Brettocks and Dave took pictures, if that helps. ( Some thoughts on the other performances, at least, since I hardly remember ours... )

Friday night missmeridian and I stayed up too late. Saturday morning was a driving comedy of errors the likes of which only DC can produce. I did not get lost, though! I did, however, get to the workshop late. But in a way that was good - it helped me approach the workshop as just another way to dance and get better and have fun. I tend to keep skulking off to the back to take notes, like writing it down will help (it will at least give me a reference) even though I'm more of a kinaesthetic/spacial learner. I feel like I have to find a way to ingest everything because it may be a year before I have a teacher in front of me again.

This time was different, though - more time to focus on refinement, more willingness to dare and fuck up, no notes taken whatsoever and hardly even a second's break from dancing. It was so cool to see so many beginners there! It was even better to dance with new people! And I left Sunday with a Sahra turn and a calibrated spin which did not suck.

Also, I feel like I've now been invited into a sisterhood of tattooed bellydancers. I think everyone who knew the tattoo is new came up to exchange tattoo stories. Though people did mistake the pomegranate on stage for chili peppers, goldfish, and a variety of other unexpected things, apparently.

So, yeah. That was a really long weekend to not feel at all like a weekend. Just like a different kind of work. I LIKE work, mind you, but it does tire a girl out.

( Blah blah blah, I'm an uncoordinated wimp, blah blah blah. )

On the up side, if I'm bad at it - well, chances are it's a good thing to work on doing well.

I'm officially declaring what used to be weeks to now be "parts". So now, part 1 is October, part 2 is November & 3 is December - there just aren't often enough breaks in my other training to do my THP more than once or twice a week.

( part 3, day 1 )

( part 3, day 2 )

The last time I actually tackled the new movements was I think while in Seattle. Between the endless October malaise and my complicated dance life, there wasn't time.

But tonight I was having fun! My two sets of five turned into four sets. It felt good - partly just that I haven't trained anything CSTish except for intu-flow for like 3 weeks.

( let's do the numbers )

I heart training. Training rocks. Train good, and you train everything good. Which totally applies to life, by the way.

( Addendum - hurdler shin roll breakthrough (or breakdown?) )