The sad truth is I don’t dance anymore. Around Christmas last year, I suffered a bad fall – I landed crookedly when trying to make up a new jump during choreography class, and I crashed on my knees. I went through the whole cycle of:

1. Denial
“Pah, it’s nothing, I’ll just walk it off!”

2. Joking about it
“Haha, did I tell you, both my knees buckled while I was in the underground tube and I crashed into a baby stroller! It was HILARIOUS!”

3. Self-medicating the hell out of it
Ice/heat pads and cream, a rainbow of painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills (I got pretty high on these pink ibuprofens my classmate gave me before a dance assessment), apple cider vinegar, those big white pills that are supposed to help with joints, really expensive massages, sea salt in my bath, knee support, another classmate gave me dental anaesthetic…

4. Saw the doctor
I’d seen one before and he just told me to stop dancing and shoo’d me out of his office. But after 4 months of pain, including a particularly vivid memory of visiting my friend in Japan and taking almost ten minutes to get to standing from my futon, I finally saw the doctor. By now I had developed a pretty nonchalant attitude towards other people’s advice re: my knees. After my (new) doctor prodded my knees with his fingers and stretched my leg this way and that, he sat me down and told in very grave tones that there was permanent damage to the cartilage and ligaments in my knees, and if I wanted to be able to walk when I’m 40, then I needed to stop dancing.

In my head I was all shouty, “YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! You’re just trying to cover your back! RAAAAAR!”. What I said was, “Could you get me an MRI appointment to confirm your diagnosis?” I didn’t think I’d get one because MRIs are pretty expensive, and the hospitals were undergoing budget cuts, and it’s not like I haven’t been able to dance the past 4 months. The doctor looked at me in the eye and made me promise that he will give me an MRI on the condition that I don’t dance until after I get the results telling me that it’s OK to do so.

5. Went to the hospital
Fast forward another 2 months (which was how long it took to get the appointment and the results back! Doctors are tricksy beasts). I was told that my knees are fine. I have arthritis in my knees, but it’s that uncommon even for someone in their twenties like me, and I can keep dancing unless it hurts.

ME: But doctor, my knees hurt all the time.
DOC: Then don’t dance on them >:-[

Thus concludes my whinging! I mean, my reason or not posting in so long.

But the good news is, I’ve been doing a fair bit of aerial circus arts training, which is like dancing in the air! I was doing routines on the static trapeze, and recently progressed on to flying (which involves swinging from one trapeze and getting caught by someone swinging on another trapeze). Those skills require more arm and general upper body strength, and put less pressure on my knees. And my knees have stopped twinging in pain whenever I take a step, so hurrah! I might venture out and try an absolute beginners ballet class next year.

So, I hope you won’t mind that my future posts will have some posts about dance and some posts about circus. I have a lot of EMOTIONS about both and I can’t wait to rabbit on about them!

Then I stuck my weekly schedule into Excel and I realized why.

This dance addiction is sort of ruining my social life! Do I regret it? Noooo~

PS: oops, “Choregraphy” is supposed to be Choreography.

I am a bit of a ballet slut, and go to lots of ballet classes taught by different teachers.

1. K – she pinches people’s bottoms.

2. L – she screams! At the top of her lungs!

3. A – she wears an austere black traditional Chinese robe (the ones for men) and prods us with a stick.

4. S – She just looks at us with truckloads of disappointment in her eyes after every bar exercise and says, “I won’t say anything anymore, I will give you more chances to prove yourselves…”

5. M – he is my only male teacher, and the students love him. He is very camp, very fabulous, and generally makes us feel very safe and taken care of. Today, however, was the second time in a row Peter, the pianist accompanist, abandoned him without even leaving him a message, which made him very aggressive indeed. After all, he had to both sing and teach.

“Stand in a row, we’ll do adagio now. If any of you get this wrong, I will shoot you.”

“I have a coathanger *waves metal coathanger* I know how to use it. I have seen American Psycho.”

“NO ONE BUT ME GETS TO SING!!!” – M in response to someone humming the tune he was singing.

“Let’s all give Peter (the accompanist) a round of applause for his hard work.” He then mock-claps, then flicks his fingers at the empty piano for the whole class to see.

We were all doubled-over laughing XD Do you have aggressive teachers?

I did this lift with J where I run at him from the side, do a split in midair with my arms outstretched to the sides, and he catches me as I fall and tuck my legs in to my chest. It ended up with my sweaty armpit squelching on his arm. GROSS, but hilarious!

Second lift was much nicer. We sway like grass, then I take a couple step forwards, lifting my right arm. Jake approaches me from behind, sort of burrows his way under my raised arm and lifts me up and over his left shoulder. He continues walking as I fold backwards like a swan. It’s really pretty~

That was the highlight. Lowlight was being hangry (so hungry that you’re angry!). I can’t seem to bring enough food with me to college. I use this huge rucksack, and you might think that I have my dance clothes in there, but no. I wear most of my dance clothes on me. 80% of my rucksack is filled food that I consume over the day. And then I go home and eat a huge dinner. It’s a bit sickening to imagine I consume more than a rucksack’s worth of food a day.

5 minute into ballet class and we were peacefully doing our plies, when the teacher shouted, “how many of you did sit ups before class?” Maybe two of the the twenty students raised their hands, and she shouted, “I CAN TELL. YOUR GUT IS ALL OVER THE PLACE. FIFTY SIT UPS NOOOOOOW!!!” We all jumped onto the floor and she counted reaaally slowly.

2 minutes before a performance workshop, another teacher told us in this really creepy quiet voice, “class starts in 2 minutes and no one is doing anything useful to warm up. get out of the classroom and think about what you’re doing with your life.” We all walked out stunned. Then the teacher popped her head out into the hallway, “CLASS STARTS NOW!” and we rushed back in.

Today the contemporary dance teacher told us to include planks (static push up position) as part of our morning rituals. “You roll out of bed onto the floor and you do planks.” One student interrupted with a totally non-sarcastic, “with breakfast?” I imagined myself doing  planks and dunking my face into a bowl of weetabix.

The teacher then made us hold a plank for 2 min 30 seconds, part of it on only one arm and one leg (in opposition).  Classmates were writhing in pain on the floor afterwards (some quit before time up and got shouted at by the teacher). The punch line? I felt no pain in my abdominals.

I approached the teacher to ask if I’m doing the planks wrong. I demonstrated for maybe 30 sec? A classmate whispered, “she’s not even shaking”. The teacher kinda shook her head, prodded my stomach, and murmured, “In all the years I’ve danced and taught, I’ve never seen anyone not feel pain doing planks…”

So apparently, I have abs of steel! Unfortunately, they are concealed by a layer of fat. And dance is not really cardiovascular, so I’m not sure when I can start flashing my in-built cheese grater at parties. Sad face!

So what have I been up to since I last updated here in 2009?

• I fell more and more in love with dance
• I started pointe classes in ballet. 
• I mulled over whether to take dance more seriously
• Work granted me a 2 year sabbatical! Miracle!!
• I got into a pre-university full-time dance course, woooooop!

In short, it’s been an awesome year! Here’s to this year being even more awesome so I have plenty to blog about

PS: Before you ask, no, this is not a career change. I’m quite realistic about my abilities. Professional dancers start dancing when they can walk, I started two years ago at age 25. My dream is to have fun dancing all day, every day, and hopefully get better at it. I’ve never taken a gap year or anything like that, so this is me getting it out of my system before I resume my career :)

Some of his pearls of wisdom:

RENATO PARONI:You know that picture of Madame Perino, where she is wearing a beautiful pearl necklace posing so gracefully with the most serene expression on her face, but she is actually sitting on the toilet and pooping? And here YOU are, doing your plies and looking constipated. Think of Madame Perino when you plie! BE Madame Perino.

RENATO PARONI:When you go home, stand in front of a mirror and take off your shirt. Cup your breasts, caress them, and tell yourself, “My breasts will never be smaller than my ribs.” REPEAT AFTER ME (we all repeat, giggling). This is easy if you have big breasts, but still. You should not THRUST your ribs out like that. Keep your ribs closed in, modest.

RENATO PARONI: Do you think when you are doing tendus, that God is watching? YES HE IS. If he exists that is. Imagine that if you do your tendus incorrectly, he will punish you after death. When you do your tendus, you want to think of what? YOU WANT TO THINK OF DEATH. DEATH AND PUNISHMENT.

RENATO PARONI: Holidays are for people who are WEAK. Holidays are for lazy people who hate their jobs. Holidays are the downfall of the economy! Holidays are evil. Imagine if all Chinese people went to Spain for their holidays at the same time. Spain would collapse! Ruin my country.

RENATO PARONI: Next week I am not teaching here. I will have replacements for you. The best teachers in the world! Some students still get terribly upset. I have to tell them, “I am not your husband.”

As part of this accreditation I am taking, I need to submit a diary of my progress and my goals to show that I am serious about dance.

My goals:
- Dance en pointe before I’m 30 (I’m 26 now).
- Perform on stage before I’m 35 (any stage will do…).
- Choreograph my own piece before I’m 40.