Look, entering a dance competition 9 months after giving birth is not the best idea I've ever had. Funnily enough, babies don't really like being ignored, left to play on their own on the floor in a dance studio. They also don't care for being pushed through the shops on a mission to Bras and Things for a costume, and certainly don't have the patience to wait while you try on 5 different things.
If you can push through the mummy guilt long enough to leave the baby with someone else, you get to the studio and realise that it's hard to be creative on 4 hours of broken sleep, and wonder if maybe you could just lie on the carpet gazing at the ceiling and visualise your choreography? That works right?
Or maybe watch some floor work videos on Instagram, that's always inspirational....until you remember you haven't danced full time for 18 months, and you still are trying to get your abs to make a comeback post caesarean-section. Now is not the time for new tricks Roxanne! Probably won't be able to master any new moves with a grand total of 2 hours rehearsal time per week.
So, here we are 3 days out, I've chosen a song I love and look forward to dancing to and I have enlisted my husband as my human prop...not as fun as it sounds folks, sorry to disappoint! Turns out after afore-mentioned broken sleep, 3 hours commute, leaving home at 5.30 am AND a full work day, he doesn't feel like rehearsing either! I have made up my mind to just do what I can already do and try and do it well enough to not fall over or off the tiny stage. I'll be happy with that to be honest. And yes, visualisation is approximately 50% of my rehearsal technique at the moment!
Jokes and self-deprecation aside, the one thing I can hold on to is that I am doing this because I love performing! As nervous as I get every time, even in the studio just in front of my class, I absolutely love performing and being on stage. I'm looking forward to seeing my show idea come to fruition, and to sharing the stage for the first time with my husband. I'm so looking forward to seeing students and colleagues past and present, and all the happy smiling faces of the pole community smiling back at me! Seriously, you guys better smile.
My first dance class after having my baby was at 7 weeks post-partum. It was a master class with the amazing Yanis Marshall from France, in a dance style I don't do. Back in November when I was pregnant I saw Yanis was coming and, idolising him as I do, I decided to buy a ticket to his workshop, fully aware that I could feel totally incapable of it at the time, but thinking it is better to have the choice than to have massive F.O.M.O. Lovely husband insisted he could handle a day on his own with bubba, and the clinching factor was that my work Christmas party (in January) fell on the same day, so I would also be able to see my lovely friends. I was in two minds about it until literally the day before when I decided to go.
I actually cried when I was feeding her that morning! For myself I might add, M would be fine, husband is amazing, and she adores him. But I have been existing as a half of a pair for 11 months now, she's like an extra appendage, how would I go all day without my little companion? And as I drove off down the freeway to Sydney I had all sorts of thoughts in my head...am I even the same person anymore? I have a new life now, I am Roxy the mother, bearer of life and boobies, not Roxy the dancer? Do I still need to be that other person?
I was also terrified of being out of my comfort zone...even at my fittest, this dance style Yanis teaches is not something I am very good at (street jazz, like video clip kind of dancing). I also had heaps of throwback emotions from when I was a professional dancer and going to auditions...man I really know how to psyche myself out!
And psyche myself out I did! I stood there at the back of the room looking at these young, hot amazing dancers at the front, nailing the chory and picking it up straight away and I felt like, well, like a mama with a 7 week old baby who hasn't exercised in 3 months!
Here's Yanis being amazing in our workshop...sorry it's filmed from behind!
Eventually though I managed to force myself to just zone in on the movement, and it was amazing to have to focus my energy and my mind on something other than myself or my baby for 2 hours. When choreography is that fast and not your natural movement, your concentration has to be focused like a laser. When I wasn't dancing I was standing at the back marking the chory through, purposely not watching those young, hot kids nailing it, but instead focusing on remembering the movement. It took me outside of myself and at the same time deep inside myself, to a part of my brain that hasn't been used for ages, and it was amazing! I felt so good for it afterwards!
It threw me for a couple of days though, bringing up a whole heap of memories and some new emotions. My past life as a professional dancer (pre-pole) was unremarkable really, even though I know I was talented, and I now cursed my past-self for not working harder or wanting "it" more, and for allowing myself to get psyched out in auditions. I realised that once and for all that part of my life is over, even though that's a decision I made many years ago, and one that I'm happy to have made as it brought me home to Sydney, to pole and teaching and, ultimately, to my husband and baby.
And then I got mad at myself for getting so nervous about this workshop and for holding back a little bit, making excuses for myself. I spent a couple of days wishing I could go back and do it again, and fantasised about flying interstate to his subsequent workshops to get a do-over. And then I felt guilty for feeling like this, and what that meant in terms of being away from my family.
Eventually it was Yanis's own words that comforted me. At one point during the workshop he stopped the music and asked one girl why she was looking at the floor when she dances and she stammered something in reply about being out of her comfort zone. Yanis replied "F**k everybody! Dance for yourself!" I'm paraphrasing here but he continued asking us all "why do you dance? Because of how it makes you feel! The joy of it, and the escape from every day life into something higher, something divine". It sounds like hyperbole, but his message resonated with me so much. I dance because of how it makes me feel, and because IT IS who I am, deep in my bones and in every tiny muscle and in that part of my brain that can remember choreography.
As corny as it sounds, although I am a mother now, I am still me. I get to be all the past me's and the present me all rolled into one...Roxy the Ballet and Contemporary dancer, Roxy the Musical Dancer and Actress, Roxy the Pregnant Pole Dancer, and, perhaps my favourite version of myself yet, Roxy the New Mummy xxx
