Groover - Bouncing back after a wedding

Maybe it's just me, but there's was something exciting about the idea of getting back to normal life after our wedding. For the past few months our lives had been completely consumed by this party of a lifetime that unfortunately, my work hustle suffered. Being primarily self employed and responsible for finding the bulk of my work on my own, meant some serious time management between wedding planning and work life. I would easily say now that that is my downfall. Sure, I'm the 'To Do' list girl, the filer, the organizer, but for some reason I just can't manage my time well. I made a few goals for myself while I was laying on the beaches of Maui and a nice long 'Back To Reality To Do' list on the flight home. Here's what i'm finding is helping me get back into the swing of things...

#1 Exercise: Leading up to the wedding, I was doing some serious cardio and over all fitness, but one month visiting with out of town guest.... and not any guests, Australians, meant a lot of drinks and good food was consumed. My first dance class back was pretty much hell but the good kind of hell where you know the deeper the burn, the more you're getting done. I've since scheduled in some sort of exercise every day. This brings me to my next tip.

#2 Scheduling: Since my mornings are slow and I don't start teaching or rehearsing until the afternoon or evening, this is prime time to schedule in anything personal I need to do. Additional dance classes, blog posts, filing paperwork, responding to e-mails, etc. Even if I've only loosely plan out each day, I'm bound to achieve more with having a bit of structure to my days.

#3 Setting Goals: I used to hate the idea of setting goals because when I was younger I was worried that I wouldn't be able to live my 'free as a bird', 'whatever happens, happens', 'just live life' lifestyle. Sadly it's taken me until now to learn that I can still have those mantras while using goals to get what I want. My goals for the rest of the year are to perform on stage again. Get back in to pointe shoe shape, get an additional job, and make a financial goal to allow us to start house hunting. 

#4 Read More: This is a hard one because if I have free time, I either am spending it online, Pinterest, or while doing something on my never ending To Do list. Lucky for me, I've just joined a book club with some wonderful girls I work with. There's nothing like a little pressure to get me to do something.

We'll that's my plan so far, so as I bid you adieu, I leave you with pictures from my honeymoon to make you jealous! Aloha!

xx D

Wedding Arms

Youtube has become my personal trainer and I'm absolutely loving it. $100 a session my ass, free is the way to go. I've been searching youtube for easy workouts I can do at home in between planning, running errands, and working.  

I've promised to not give up on my wedding body even with the stresses of everything and I figured I'd start from the top and work my way down so I don't get too overwhelmed.

My favorite video so far is for Wedding Arms, although I'm sure they'll look hot for any occasion ;) For these exercises I use 3 lb weights, but as she suggests in the video, the exercise is still helping even if you're holding nothing. Did you hear that?... Nothing, so no excuses.

Don't feel bad if you don't get through the whole video.... because then I'll have to feel bad for not finishing it either. Baby steps guys.

However, I do have to warn you, this chick can be super entertaining. Don't get distracted by her high voice and enthusiasm.

Now squeeze into that spandex click here, and enjoy!

before...

after...

Side note: I've decided that everyone who chooses to get married should get appointed a fairy godmother or godfather to magically help with all the wedding plans. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually having the time of my life, but I'm feeling a bit scatter brains at the moment.

xx D

Who Disney Desires

This morning I work up around 8am to get ready for an audition for a live stage show at Disneyland. It's about an hour drive to the park, and maybe even and hour thirty during rush hour and on weekends.  Not exactly something I want to be contractually obligated to do. To be honest, I've never had any desire whatsoever to work at Disneyland, although I do know many dancers do. To me it's always seemed like a job you went for when you didn't have any other auditions coming your way, or when you were really wanting extra money. Oh boy was I wrong. 

First of all, some of these dancers were F-I-E-R-C-E! The combo was a tid bit more hip-hop-ey than what's in my comfort zone, but after learning the combo and the comfy pay rate, I turned on the power. there were about 100 dancers all together, most with agency's like myself, and a few freelance dancers. We all learned the combo together and were called 5 at a time to dance twice in front of the casting directors and choreographer. 

Something I was never taught in the ballet world but have learned from years of experience in the commercial dance world, is improv! There are always a few eight counts of music to get you prepared to break out the combo. Well, you don't want to look like an idiot waiting for the dance to start so you have to improv. One thing i've caught on to (although I wish I knew this earlier) is to show off your expertise, even if it may not be exactly in the style of dance you're auditioning for. For example, my forte is ballet, so I'm not going to pop my booty or do split jumps even if it's a hip-hop or lyrical audition. No, I'm the girl doing fouettes in heels to a grand jeté.

To make a long story short, I was in the very last group and by this time I had a pretty good idea of the people the were watching... short, hip-hop training, and DISNEY.... basically everything i'm not. Anyway, after attempting to make fouettes look mildly funky, i'm afraid I looked a little more classically trained than I wanted too, and I got cut. So, I rewarded myself for even going and went to in-n-out for lunch. The end. haha.

Bye bye free park entry passes!

xx D