Starting a routine

I've been in a bit of a funk recently so this is when I get slightly obsessive about my trapeze routines. Recently we've focussed on skills training in class but now that we have some lovely sequences put together, I'm inspired to work on a routine again.
This is where my OCD kicks in: choosing music.  I am at a slight disadvantage in that I have no brief, no client, no show to aim for.  The music shapes what kind of routine I build but I don't know what routine might get me closer to my goal of a paying trapeze gig.
So first stop You Tube for ideas and inspiration. I have 3 favourites at the moment:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tyhv2F22GI
Liza Rose in 'Studio: Morning'
A modern dance trapeze piece with beautiful music. I've bought the track and find myself listening to it often. This is what I aspire to: cool moves seamlessly merged into movement around the bar and ropes.
2. (You Tube won't give me the link on my mobile)
Sofia Tsola trapeze act
Seamless beautiful artistic trapeze where every movement is precise and controlled.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wouFh6H5euE
Cameron McHenry
Fun exciting burlesque-style routine with upbeat music. 

So I'm drawn to 2 styles.  The fun burlesque style is more likely to work in gigs and events in London that I could potentially perform at.  After searching for music in that style, I have a track I could use.
The more fluid modern dance style is what I really want to perfect but I don't have any dance training or copious amounts of experimentation time to help me work out the minute detail in such a routine. It would take months.  I've continued to ponder it anyway and have thought hard about what would make a routine like that work for me.  The music is key and I've eventually decided that it has to be music that moves me, something that has meaning for me rather than just choosing a track with a beat that is easy to choreograph to.  There are 2 Craig Armstrong tracks currently fighting it out to win my heart.

So now I have to decide: more  commercial routine or more self indulgent dance piece? Ideally I could work on both but I have very limited time and would like to have at least one finished piece in the next few months.  Any aerialists out there with words of advice?

A month of healthy living

It feels like only yesterday that I made the firm decision to be healthier. I'm still doing EA Sports Active 2 (EASA2), though there was a week of feeling under the weather that made me drop 4 workouts. By the end of that week I wasn't feeling brilliant but I did a workout anyway and found that it actually helped me get my oomph back.

I've only been using stairs at work, except for one last minute meeting on the fifth floor that I didn't have time to walk to. I've got a fruit bowl on my desk that I fill at the start of the week with enough fruit for 3 portions of my 5 a day for the week. I've reduced my portion sizes - something that I realised I should do after reading Kate Driskell's blog. I've started buying tasty salad (Watercress, Rocket, Baby Spinach) for adding to pasta and sandwiches. I even brought my own lunch in to work once this week. That's the first time I've ever done that in the last 16 years!

After this week's trapeze class, I felt really motivated to continue to improving and I ordered New York City Ballet workout DVDs when I got home. I'm going to be working on kick ass extension in my legs to improve my hanging beats. The ballet will help with my strength and posture for a lot of my trapeze work and the kids might join in too.

I probably shouldn't bother noticing but there's a weekly 'weigh-in' with EASA2 and it cheers me up when I notice a small steady drop in my weight each week. It would be so nice to be under that overweight BMI line for a change. Less of me to haul around the trapeze would be great too. I'm aiming for a healthy weight (76kg) by Easter and if I do really well and get there much sooner, I'll change my goal to be my 'ideal weight' (69kg) - though it would probably blow my mind to achieve that.

Someone hauled out a fully loaded biscuit tin earlier today. Hob Nobs and Rich Tea just aren't worth it! I'd rather have a clementine than waste a workout burning calories I got from a biscuit. It amazes me how many calories are in food compared to how few calories I burn with a good workout.

New Year me

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions. January 1st is just another day to me and I don't see what all the fuss is about. I do, however, have post-Christmas plans to get fitter and healthier. All that chocolate and excess needs to be kept to a short holiday period or it'll just take over.

I want to improve my aerial skills and that means getting stronger and fitter. I only really have time for one weekday session at MAH so I've been looking for a solution for additional training and exercise that fits in with my time constraints. There are lots of possibilities...

Cycling to work - I enjoy it but it takes too long when you factor in changing, showering, locking bike up etc. Also, I don't like cycling in the dark and it's genuinely too cold at the moment. When daylight returns in mid-March, I'll look into this option again.

Lunch-time gym sessions - I can join a gym at work for £19 a month and it has a machine that would let me work on chin-ups etc. I doubt I'd go though. I kinda hate gyms. I usually don't have a lunch break because getting the kids to school and nursery and picking them up eats into my time too much for me to have the luxury of a full one hour lunch break. In an ideal world, the gym would be my easy option but realistically I'd be one of those gym members who pays and never goes. I'd rather save my money.

Gym after work - I looked around for gyms that I could go to once the kids are in bed and was shocked by the lack of reasonable options. The average cost is about £50 a month and they tend to shut by about 10pm. This costed itself out of the running.

Home exercise - I considered this to be a non-starter because I don't enjoy exercise DVDs or exercising while watching TV. Then I bought hubby EA Sports Active 2 for the PS3 for his birthday last week (he *did* really want it!) and we've started doing workouts while the kids are in bed. I'm amazed at how much I enjoy it. There's a heart rate monitor and the exercises in each workout so far have been varied enough to keep me interested. Last night focussed on upper body strength - YAY! I plan to do 4 workouts a week and there's enough trophies and goals and online tracking to maintain my enthusiasm. My 9 week plan ends in March, which seems a long way off, but I'm curious to see what results I can achieve in that time so I hope I stick with it.

My other endeavours in my fitness kick are "leaving the building at lunchtime" and "using the stairs". I've started using Tescos for my lunches so that saves money and varies my diet to be healthier. I've also stopped using the lifts at work. The furthest I've gone so far is to the third floor. Woe betide anyone who books a meeting with me on the top floor this week!

Tonight is my static class night and I'm hoping that there's some vague strength and fitness improvements since last week. I should probably start doing chin up challenges in class to gauge my progress. The day I can do an unassisted chin up from a fully extended hang will be an awesome day in my life. Hmmm, I've ended up with strange goals in life.

Climbing back up that rope

I first started on the static trapeze in 1999. My then yoga teacher handed out leaflets in her yoga class advertising some absolute beginners static trapeze lessons in Glasgow and I was excited and intrigued. After my first lesson in an amazing large space - a church hall with vaulted ceilings, 2-3 trapezes and a couple of ropes - I was hooked.

Static is the usual entry point into aerial circus. You start off there and often progress to rope/corde lisse, hoop/cerceau, silks, swinging trapeze, flying trapeze and a whole host of cool stuff. You are less likely to kill yourself when you don't know what you are doing and have limited upper body strength if you are on a static trapeze bar.

When I moved to London in 2000, my priorities were find place to stay and get place on static trapeze class. I was fortunate to cover both of these off by the time my new job started. After over 5 years training weekly with the fabulous Lorraine and a varying classroom/studio of cool and strong people, I was at the peak of my physical fitness and trapeze abilities but had come to the point in life where motherhood called. I took a year off for my pregnancy, then managed a year's training before I was off again for two years during and after my second baby. Aerial had to take a back seat to my growing family.

This year I've been slowing getting back into it. After a haphazard start, I finally found an amazing space to train in - My Aerial Home. Convenient, friendly, relatively cheap, lots of rigged trapezes and ropes. I've been training there for a few months now and love it to bits. It's going to take a long time for my skills to fully return but I love being able to head there on Monday practice nights and go through my conditioning and then work on whatever I like.

For the last few weeks, I've been playing about with a small sequence of moves for a 'Trapeze Tag' section of a performance we're putting on for Bromley Arts Council Fete. It's exciting and terrifying to think that I'm going to be up on a trapeze in front of random strangers. It might even be outdoors! I've only ever performed to invited family and friends at Circus Space 'aerial' days. The fact that I have this opportunity amazes me. I'm full of questions and concerns but I don't have the time to actually stress about any of it, which is handy. We've a full rehearsal this weekend and then the performance on the last Saturday of the month.

Update 2/9/2010 : At the rehearsal I found out that I either had to do a full routine or nothing at all because the rest of my 'Trapeze Tag' colleagues had failed to show. I decided to go for it and used all the tricks I could think of to make my short sequence last the length of the music. It worked well in rehearsal but when we got to the venue on the day, rigging restrictions meant I had to ditch my big finish (a hocks dismount). My routine went well but I finished with lots of music left and had to busk it a bit to the music end. I don't think anyone noticed. It was fun performing again and being outside doing it was a great laugh. However my kids decided that the bouncy castle was much better than all the boring trapeze.