Post birthday blues meets dance confidence fail…

Its not post birthday blues, its post facebook birthday blues. My birthday itself didn’t involve a lot of partying or anything special at all actually. I got take out, I chatted to my parents, and I dyed my hair. So I really don’t think I have blues from that! But the thing about birthdays these days is facebook. As a person who is used to not a great deal happening on my facebook, birthdays are a bit surprising. Every time I open the page there are more notifications with well wishes from lots of lovely people from all over. And then its over. The birthday is done, and my page returns to its quietness. Which is actually kinda depressing. Now every time I click on it, there is nothing. Time to look at it less, thinks I. but it is a little strange, to get so many comments on 1 day and then it immediately stops again.

So maybe that is part of my blues feeling.

I am a person who used to be so good at not sleeping – I mean, I had to be, I was the queen of insomnia. I am no longer that person. I still get random bouts of insomnia. But these days, tiredness really shows. Not just on my face but also in my mood.

Its like dance weekends. I love dance weekends. You get to hang out with people you’ve met like once before, and you get to learn stuff, and there is always some great dancing. And then you go home again. And real life kicks in. and in my case the dancing dies.

I have this week been at a not quite all time low, but am just finding a lack of dance confidence. Went dancing last night and just felt so incredibly uninspired. And yes, it wasn’t my sort of music, but going dancing should still make me feel good. It wasn’t a good night for me. I was off my game. And I was lamenting my lack of progress. Seeing the dancers who were about my level when I first got here, but who are now so much better than me… it just saddens me some times. I’m not jealous that they’re good, I’m sad that I’m not. And that its my fault. I haven’t taken regular classes since I’ve been here. And its really starting to show. But added to that, the folks that are really upping their game, are the folks who spend their free time practising and working on new things. And I don’t know how to get into the mindset of doing this. I am in the habit of getting in from work/wherever and crashing out on the couch. And then I can easily lose the whole evening caught up in things I wanted to do on the internet or shows I “need” to watch. The few times I have thought about how I should get up and practise stuff, I just don’t know where to start. I mean, practising a jazz routine works, but there's only so long I can do a jazz routine before I get bored and want to sit down, or remember something else I was supposed to do. But I cant really see a way out of this dance confidence issue, other than to dance more. The only way the confidence will improve is if the dancing improves. And the only way for the dancing to improve is for me to practice more, right?

I have been saying for some time now, to various people who are mostly unable to help, that I want someone to practice with – a practice partner or dance partner, or group to work on stuff with. But I just don’t know how you even find one. It seems so difficult to organise when not taking classes, thus not provided with a ‘could we just try that?’ situation. And I feel like all the people of my level who want a partner probably already have one. I know that working with people of different levels can really help – dancing with a bunch of beginner dancers recently totally highlighted some of my major failings, but practising with someone who can feel the subtle changes I can make sounds so much more useful. Which creates the whole judgement involved of what is “my level”… I mean, dancing with someone who is better than me brings my dancing up a level. But then if I’m practising one set of stuff that they already have, wont I then be holding them back, getting in their way, being annoying to them? I’m one of those people who learns quickly, so I get frustrated in classes where something that seems so straight forward to me seems so difficult to someone else. It is a case of, if you don’t lead anything, there's not a whole lot I can do – I mean I could walk thru it, but then how would that help either of us. Equally, there are times when I realise I am totally not following, just walking thru motions (in classes and socially), and I wish someone would tell me to stop it. I’ve led in enough classes to know how annoying it can be. 

So basically I’m looking for a great dancer, who will tell me when I’m wrong, put up with me being terrible/clumsy/needing to constantly practice everything I find hard, have good ideas, motivate me, and have plenty of free time to practice in… oh and doesn’t already have a partner… Yeah, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t exist. And if he did I would probably wanna marry the guy instead, so…

Usch. Should it really require this much thought…?

Oh and with all that left over time and motivation, I need to learn Swedish… right…

... and in other news

Look at this beautiful baby polar bear
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mby6lnd7AR1qasthro1_400.gif

And I really like postcards. And other snail mail. And if you all (if anyone is reading this) are bored, you could send me mail…

I feel like someone gave my colleagues sugar – there are more things than usual being thrown around the room….

I feel like facebook stalking has become my newest hobby. How do I fix this? Or does anyone have suggestions of good people to stalk..??