cardio

It’s October

~ Lifelongdancestudent ~ Leave a comment

Hello! Today is the first day of October and it definitely feels like it – yes I’m wearing a jumper. I haven’t written a post since I received my Tap Dance Postage Stamps in August, so here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to recently:

The City of Bath 

At the beginning of September, my SO, my mum and I had a 3-day break in the beautiful Georgian city of Bath. My SO and I had been before as a short stop-off on the way to Cornwall, and we had been meaning to return for a proper visit. The sun was out the whole time and it was loooovely and warm. We wandered the city, ate great food, visited Bath Abbey and the Jane Austen Museum (we bought books!), did 2 different bus tours. We had a GREAT time and can’t wait to go back.

Tap Class

Tap classes restarted last week after the summer break! I’m continuing to work from home, so I’m not able to attend the classes in London. My teacher is running online-only classes on a Monday evening, so I’m doing her one-hour intermediate/advanced class. It’s pretty cool to be moving towards advanced level tap. The class is basically covering the same stuff as the in-person intermediate classes, but at a faster pace. Because it’s an hour as opposed to 45 minutes, we have more time for the exercises, such as rudiments.

I was determined this summer to do lots of practise down in the garage, and I was actually getting stuck in with rudiment exercises from the recordings of the virtual NYC Tap City festival….but then I had a flare-up of eczema on the tops of my feet that meant I wasn’t able to wear tap shoes or get hot feet. (I’ve not had any eczema for about 5 years, so it’s pretty frustrating). That knocked practise out for several weeks. Well, now I’m back to class and it’s back again – I think I’ve been a bit stressed lately. The steroid cream is working, so hopefully I’ll be okay for Monday.

Exercise

Like a lot of people I need to get back into shape after having sat around at home for over a year with no commute and no Tuesday gym sessions. Last year I was quite motivated to exercise. This year…not so much. But, I have been doing the BOP Jazz workout most weeks, which has helped with flexibility more than anything, and last week I renewed my £8.99 subscription to Rambert’s Home Studio for access to all their online classes – Ballet, Contemporary, Contemporary Fusion, Yoga, Pilates and Dance Cardio which I did on Monday and still haven’t recovered from! I went swimming a couple of times during the summer and even ran around a local running track with my SO (a club-runner!), of which I hated every minute because I really hate running 🙂 I’m hoping to maybe get into the swimming habit on a Friday, but we’ll see!

How are you keeping fit right now? Have you gone back to the gym? Are you back to in-person classes or still online? Let me know in the comments – I love to hear from you!

 

Cross Training

~ Lifelongdancestudent ~ 3 Comments

After saying it for some time, I finally picked up my 5kg dumb bell weights at the weekend and pumped some iron! Yes, I love resistance training. I prefer it to cardio. Running? No. Body building? Maybe!

I decided to try and find a dance warm-up or workout on YouTube that would be doable on a daily or every-other-day basis as part of my intention to get back into some form of cross-training:

I found a Jazz class warm-up on YouTube and did that a few times. That was VERY good in terms of stretching and core work, and it wasn’t too long. My abs were burning.

There was another one I tried without verbal instructions. The music was calming and atmospheric, the filming was in black and white, really enjoyable… and then it kept cutting to the next exercise without any transition! So one minute we’re lying on the floor and suddenly we’re standing. Also, it didn’t repeat on the other side of the body, so I had to play it through again to achieve the balance. I won’t discount it for that reason though and have added it to my playlist.

I also had a go at a Sweaty Betty ballet workout featuring Flik Swan & Victoria Marr of Sleek Technique. I only just about got through the warm-up and I was done – it is hard work! But you do get results if you stick with it. I have their triple box set on DVD, which I had started reviewing on the blog, but it is so full-on that I ran out of steam. Hopefully I’ll review the third and final DVD in that set at some point in 2018…

However, once the weekend was gone and the busyness of the week took over, I haven’t done anything since, besides running through the tap routine for tonight – doh!

  • Which do you prefer to throw yourself into, cardio, resistance or maybe both?
  • How do you stay fit and flexible between dance classes?