Better than any long text... :)

If you wanna have a slight feeling of the atmosphere...


...see a bit more of all the classes...


...or even the dance show of the sunday... :)

The Nike Blast 2011 : Day 2

When I woke up on Sunday morning, my body was quite sored, and I was really wondering how (the hell) I was going to survive the 5 classes of the day ! Well, I got my answer when the first class started.

It was a jazz funk class with Emilio Perrelli. GREAT ! I mean, jazz funk is definitely my style, and even though I wasn't able to remember the steps (hum), the feeling was really good, because for the 1st time since the beginning of the weekend (except for the 1st class with Åsa), I could feel it was "my" thing. And it definitely gave me energy I needed for the rest of the day. :)

Then, after a 2 hour break, I went to take Åsa Eriksson's class : "Booty Walk". Everything is in the title I would say... ! A dance class where you make yourself sexy :) No technical difficulty, just sexy moves... just pure fun ! Loved it !

Elaine Rydberg was instructing my 3rd class of the day : GaGa Our. A street class with a Lady Gaga feeling. Elaine is really cool, also with a very positive energy, so the class was lots of fun ! Too bad Elaine is not teaching in Stockholm but in Gothenburg.

And for the 4th class, Kristin Sudeikis was back, but for hip-hop fusion this time. Once again : WOW ! The choreo was kind of difficult at the beginning, quite fast, and the first half hour was pretty challenging then. But once I got it, it was really cool and I was actually quite proud of myself. :)

Finally, the last (but not least) class of the day and of the weekend as well was BODYBALANCE with Åsa F. and Josef Matthews. I thought that ending the weekend with this class would be perfect. To stretch, relax and "digest" all this energy my body received during the weekend. And I was right, it was a good ending. However, I think this BODYBALANCE program is good but thougher than the previous ones, and I felt that my muscles were really dying after all this training, and I didn't do correctly half of the exercises then...

So on Monday I was off. I figured I might need one extra weekend day to recover, and I think it was a good initiative. However, I couldn't help it and had to go dancing a bit, and I attended Åsa Ingelög's class, who is the gal who won the Nike Top Instructor competition. Her class is a bit early for me when I'm working, so today was the perfect occasion. And I'm happy I went cause the class was really good, and I think I understand why she won the competition :)

I'll finish this serie of 3 long posts by thanking everyone who has contributed to make this weekend what it was, which means fantastic. Of course Nike and the Nike people, but also my nice company during the weekend, Julia, Malin, Veronica... Åsa for the PreBlast, and also all the great instructors in general.

I don't know exactly where I'll be next year, but one thing is sure, I'll do my best to be in Stockholm for the Nike Blast 2012 :) Hoppas vi ses nästa år !!

(Pictures and links to come later).

The Nike Blast 2011 : Day 1

On the Saturday, the "real" Blast started.


I first met Julia at 7.20am (nope, no typing mistake...) to go to the venue of the event, the University. We had to be there early to first check in, but also to be able to buy clothes at the Nike shop before they run out of all the good items. And we did good cause some people were queuing for one hour to pay... Crazy !!

Then 9am, the first class started, and it was to the small but great Åsa F. to inaugurate the big stage ! A typical "Åsa-ish" class with great music, great moves, great feeling and always tons of energy. :)

Åsa on stage !
Photo from http://www.felicitasblog.com/

After that, my plan was to take the BODYCOMBAT class, but I finally figured that I might need to keep some energy for the 4 other upcoming classes of the day. Think quality, not quantity as someone told me ;)

Then, second class of the day was called "100% Earned", and was a dance classe driven by 6 awesome members of the Nike team : Robert S, Niklas L, Dorotka B, Elaine R, Åsa E, and again Åsa F. A very fun class with a mix of different styles. Here is a link with a short video of their performance.

The 3rd class of the day was the most expected one : a street dance class with Tony Stone. Tony Stone is an american dancer and has been presenting at the Nike Blast (or Convention as they used to call it) a few times already. I really liked the class, the choreo was not so easy but after a few times we managed to do it though. Well, I think at least... !! However, as Julia was mentionning it to me, it was a bit annoying that Tony Stone spent half of the class, just showing off... But anyway, the choreo and the class itself were still really good :)

4th class was not the most expected but probably the best class of the day. It was a contemporary lyrical class with the amazing Kristin Sudeikis, who is an American dancer, teaching at Peridance in New York. It had been a long time since I had taken a real contemporary/lyrical class, and during this class, I remembered why I used to love it so much. I think that it's in this kind of class that I get the better "dance feeling", like I get even more transported by the choreo and the music. And Kristin was just amazing :)

And finally, the last class was called "NYC Dance" with Marvin Foster Jr. I don't know if it's because it was the 5th and last class of the day and that I was tired, but I didn't enjoy it that much. I mean it was cool, but like one of the best dance classes of my life...

After day 1, I just went home, took a shower, had an express pizza dinner (diner ?) with Valerie and fell asleep around 9pm !! Had to be bright and early for day 2 !!!

(Pictures and links to come later).

The Nike Blast 2011 : Introduction and PreBlast

As I mentionned earlier, last weekend was the Nike Blast.

For those who haven't understood yet what it is, it's a training event organized by Nike every last weekend of January. This year, it was a total of 77 classes going on during the entire weekend. More than half of them were dance classes (jazz, street, contemporary, aerobics, ragga...), but there was also lots of yoga, core, spinning... and even lectures. Well, it was HUGE.

I have to say I had quite high expectations on this event as I had heard so much about it before. And the least I can say is that I haven't been disappointed at all, it's even the opposite. It was really amazing.

The Blast started on Friday evening, with the "Nike PreBlast, Dance Boost", a dance and choreography workshop organized by Åsa. I was a bit nervous cause I guessed that in a 3 hour class, I would have to do some kind of creation work, which I know is not my strongest point... Same with impro. But it ended to be REALLY fun. I was happy to be able to DARE, and I loved the feeling. Also Åsa made us very confortable and all the participants were really kind so I wasn't afraid to be judged or anything.

Here is the group, or at least a part of it as some of them left a bit earlier.

Thank you Vladi for the picture :)

44 hours - 49 minutes

It's the time left before The Nike Blast. :)

And the main thing in my mind right now is : I don't know what to wear !!!!!!!!!!!
Might sound stupid, huh ? It's not as if I was going to the party of the year - or maybe it is lol - but since I'm in Sweden and most of all since I started to train again one year ago, I realized that training clothes are really a crucial part of the training itself. To feel good in what you're doing, you need to feel that you look good also. Especially when you're dancing. Well, that's my feeling at least.

So I've bought quite a lot of training clothes since one year - mostly from Nike and from the BDC online shop. And even with this, I manage to look at my training garderobe and feel like I don't have anything to wear lol.
Let's just hope that they will have nice Nike clothes at the shop during the convention !

Talking about the Blast, here is my schedule for the week-end !

Friday 17.00 to 20.00: Pre-Blast - Dance Boost with Åsa

Saturday :
9.00 : Åsa F. 2011 (street dance)
10.15 : BODYCOMBAT
11.45 : 100% Earned (dance aerobic)
13.00 : MTV you and me (street) with Tony Stone !!
15.30 : Contemporary Lyrical dance
17.00 : NYC dance (street dance)

Sunday :
9.00 : Jazz Funk
12.00 : Booty Walk (dance)
13.15 : GaGa Our (street dance)
14.30 : Chair Tease (dance with chairs)
16.00 : BODYBALANCE

Hopefully, I took a day off on Monday !!

Gotta go get some sleep now. That's more than needed with this upcoming freaking crazy training dancing weekend !!

NY on my mind

Sometimes it happens, I start to think about some things and it becomes some kind of obsession. And it's the case with New York now.

Can't believe it's been 6 months already since I was there... And I miss is so much.



Don't really know when I'll be able to go back there. Probably not this year unfortunately. But the one after hopefully... ?! But before that, let's just dream about it. Dreaming is good as well... and litterally priceless !! ;)

Veronica

A special friend of mine got her birthday today : Veronica.

I met Veronica at the gym after a dance class in the Spring last year, and it was kind of "friendship at first sight" between us.
Since then we haven't left each other and I think we're bringing a lot to each other, cause we are so different but we understand each other very good, there is no judgment. And she is definitely one of my pillars here.

As some of you know, Veronica is in love with France. So for her birthday I got the idea of offering her a week-end in Paris. So I got in touched with her friends from school and work, and everyone was enthuiastic about the idea. So we made her the surprise and I think she was really happy, which made me happy of course :)

So we are both going to Paris the 3rd week-end of February ! I'm looking forward to it :)
But it's not gonna be the 1st time we'll be in Paris together, cause we were there last summer already.
On the "Champ de Mars", close to the Effeil Tower during a nice evening with my friends. :)


Can't wait to be there again !

Once again, grattis på din födelsedag finaste Veronica !