Taking a break from Ballet

Hi Guys!
Have you ever felt like you are hitting a brick wall in your training and no matter what you do, you're just not improving the way you want to? Or you stretch an hour a day to get more flexible and you feel like it's getting worse instead of better?
I certainly know the feeling! I literally haven't had a break from ballet in over 6 months, meaning I've been training every day, several hours a day. When the school year ended, everything was hurting, my muscles were strained and my flexibility had gotten worse.
I know it can be really scary because you think you are going to loose everything you have worked very hard for if you take a break, but sometimes, that's exactly what you need.
Now, you can't take off a week every month but once or twice a year, your body just needs a little rest.
In my case, I feel like my technique is getting stronger as I have time to let everything I learned settle and it helps me regain my motivation. Sometimes you need to miss something in order to fully appreciate it and that's exactly what's happened to me.
Before I came to England, I took a week off from everything. No ballet, no gym and no stretching and just did everything I really wanted to do. Some days, I really had to force myself not to do anything dance related at the end of the week I felt so much better and my flexibility was right at the point I wanted it to be. My back felt a lot better, my injured hip hurt a lot less and my old hamstring tear finally had some time to relax!
The point is: if you feel like nothing is working anymore, a little break ia maybe just consider taking a little break to let your body relax!
See you soon!
Laulie

Photoshooting in Bristol

Hi Guys,
On Sunday I went to Bristol for a photoshoot with Suzi Bird. Bristol is a little under 2 hours away from Torquay and trains don't run too often and with my luck, of course my train was canceled because there was a person hit by a train in Exeter.
So I had to take a bus to Newton Abbot and take the train from there.
Everything turned out fine in the end though and I ended up on the right train to Bristol.
I had some time before the shoot so I headed to Cabot Circus, which is a huge shopping center and reminded me of Brickell Center in Miami a lot. They even had a Victoria's Secret in there, which was a nice surprise but I didn't buy anything because it's so expensive in the UK and I still didn't have much cadh and no credit cards.
I met with Suzi at 2pm at Cabot Circus and we headed into the city for the shoot.
Shooting with Suzi was absolutely amazing because she knows dance so well and no matter how fast you go into and get out of your pose, she always manages to get a great shot! Choosing poses was so easy because she always had a clear image in mind. I swear I've never gotten so many photos out of a 2 hour shoot and I can't wait to see the edited images.
After the shoot I headed to Primark because so many people raved about the one in Bristol and it really is amazing and massive with 4 huge floors.
Afterwards I got some dinner and took the train back to Torquay.
See you soon!
Laulie

England Gym Routine

Hi Guys,
Since I mentioned I signed up for the Gym here, I thought I'd tell you what I'm doing there, since my routine is very different from what I do at home.
I start off with 30 minutes of cardio on the eliptical, in which I run about 6km.
After that I do a 3 set of lunges with 2x4 kg weights, 10 reps on each leg.
Then I do 20 squads with an 8kg kettleball (the heaviest they've got) and 10 lateral squads and crossover into a fourth position, also with the kettleball. I alternate these 2 exercises and do 3 sets in total.
For core strength I do 30 crunches on the pilates ball, followed by and exercise where you are in a pushup position with your legs up on the ball and pull your knees to your chest. I do 15 of those and stay in the pushup position for another 30 seconds after finishing the last one. Then I roll back with my stomach on the ball and do 30 back raises. I alternate these 3 exercises and do 3 sets of that.
After that, I get on the matt and do some floor barre for turnout, core, inner thighs and feet and then put on my pointe shoes to do some releves in the center in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th position.
After that I usually practice some pirouettes or do some other stuff I want to work on. I also always do some tendus in fhe center and practice some developpes and arabesques.
At last I do about 30 minutes of stretching.
I'm not doing much strengthening at the moment but moment and I will definitely add to this routine but my legs and butt have been really sore anyway.
This routine takes me about 2 hours.
See you soon!
Laulie

Work, Photoshoots and stolen credit cards

Hey Guys,
On Thursday I've been working and went to the Gym in my break. I actually had to work late because we had to get 2 rooms ready for new guests and one of them was still a mess because the had to repair the ceiling that came down after a leak in the room above. But that also meant I could finished early on Friday.
The evenings are pretty much the same every day. Someone's always working and the others just hang out in the common room till at least 1am, cooking and plaing  cards.
On Friday in my break I went to meet with a photographer for a shoot at the Imperial Hotel, which was absolutely  amazing although I was in a really bad mood because right before the shoot I discovered my Credit Cards were stolen, so I had to call my banks and block all my cards. Fortunately I found out before any damage was made. I'm still really angry and kind of just hate people right now because it just caused so much trouble and I had to open a new account and have to wait for the card. That's also why I had to cancel a photoshoot I had scheduled for Saturday.
On Sunday I'm going to Bristol for an exciting shoot with Suzi Bird. Luckily I have already booked the train tickets in advance so I don't have to cancel that one.
Can't wait for you to see all the new pictures!
See you soon!
Laulie

First day of work

Hi Guys,

Today was my first day of work. This week I will be working in another Hostel called Amigos, which  is the place where most of the long term guests stay. I'll be keeping the common areas clean and unlike in the bagpackers, I won't have to clean the rooms. 

My first shift was pretty caotic because my boss forget to assign someone to show me around so I had to figure things out on my own. Quite fun at 8 in the morning.

I eventually got the tour in the evening, because I'll be working from 8-11 am and  6-9pm for the next three days and then I'll have the weekend off. 

In my break I went to the gym and after went to get some groceries. Not fun because it's been raining all day long.

In the evening I've been chatting with the 2 German guests who arrived today.

No pictures today because of the rain.

See you tomorrow!

Laulie

Summer Travels Day 7: Torquay

Hi Guys!
Today is my last day off before I start working and the weather was absolutely beautiful so I went on a walk through the harbor and hiked up the South West Coast Way, which is exhausting but absolutely worth it.
After that I finally got a gym membership. The gyms here are completely different from what I'm used to though. In Berlin, most gyms are really big and are equipped with new and modern machines whereass the ones here are small with old machines that I don't even recognize, but most importantly: people actually talk to each other and nobody even listens to music. That's something I'll have to get used to because at home, everyone just focusses on themselves. What I love most about this gym though: there is a room with two mirror walls, a lot of free space and decent floor, so I can actually do ballet and even pointe in there!
It felt really good to finally stretch out cause I haven't been stretching in almost 2 weeks. The break was good though, because all the pain I was in the last weeks of classes are completely gone!
Also, the gym has open times, which is a shame cause it's like a 5 minute walk from home and I could go whenever and don't have to take a train to get there.
In the evening we just watched some TV and I will probably go to bed early because I have to work tomorrow at 8.
See you tomorrow.
Laulie

Summer Travels Day 6: Torquay

Hi Guys!

This morning, I took a long walk around town and the harbor, as the weather was a lot better than I expected. Then I did some shopping and went to get a few groceries.

In the afternoon, I went to the park with some of the other helpers to work out.

In the evening, we ordered pizza and ate an amazing Oreo Cheesecake. Ordering pizza turned out a lot harder than we expected though, as everybody seemed to have an opinion about what to order, so we ended up getting our pizzas at about 10:45. It was worth it though.

Tomorrow I will run a few more errands and hopefully finally sign up for the gym.

See you tomorrow!