Report from the "dance pole-floor"

As I told you, I had my first pole dance class yesterday.
As expected, it was a lot of fun. We first started by warming up, then we spend the biggest part of the class learning some basic tricks (well, they were SUPPOSED to be basic at least), then we put everything together to make a short choreo, and we ended by doing some strength training (push ups and stuff).

Learning the tricks was quite hard, especially as you repeat them all the time. So you get easily tired. But then when we put everything together in the choreo, it became smoother in a way... Don't know if it was the feeling with the music or if it was the truth though haha.

Anyway, I've drawn 2 conclusions from this class :
1. I need to get more muscles everywhere in my body, especially in my fingers (yes, you can do some fingers strength training, it actually exists !!)
2. Next time I'll wear long sleeves... if I don't wanna get those bruises again !!

That was my arm when I woke up this morning... Nice huh?

But now I'm gonna rest for a few days I guess... I'm so sored that even breathing is painful ! And I've been working out 6 days in a raw now, for a total of 9 hours so I guess my body not only deserves, but NEEDS some rest ! :)

New experiences !

Yesterday and today are about trying new things !

It started yesterday evening when I joined Lena for a hip-hop class with Joe, who is a dancer from the famous street dance group Bounce (that I've mentionned before).

I really wanted to go as I knew that the choreo was on "Smooth Criminal" from MJ, and I had SUCH a amazing souvenir from a choreo on this song last summer in New York.

Not so surprisingly it was lots of fun and I really liked the class.

The funny thing is that we did not only dance on Smooth Criminal, it was kind of a mix of MJ songs, and one part I had done it many years ago - typ 9 or 10 years - and it really felt like my body could remember it ! The body can be quite amazing sometimes...

And we'll see if it's still amazing tonight when I go to my first pole dance class ! :) I have some doubts actually haha. It's gonna be an 8 weeks course so I really hope I can learn some tricks and hopefully get some new muscles. I've heard many times that pole dancing is a really good training, so we'll see.

So this is sure gonna be me in 8 weeks :) (or maybe not haha)

Or maybe I'll just stick to this :p


Anyway, no matter how hard it is, I think it's cool to try, I have nothing to loose, and I know I'm gonna have lots of fun with Josefin and Valerie who will be with me :)

Melodifestivalen 2011

Since a few weeks, I've heard quite a lot about this very famous and popular song contest here in Sweden : Melodifestivalen.

It took me some time before I realized that it was a contest to choose which artist would be represented at the Eurovison song contest.

I thought it was quite funny that it was so popular here, while in France is definitely seen as the most boring and tacky song contest EVER. Like people who watch it don't really dare saying it lol.
But I guess it's a bit different here in the sense that the Swedes get to vote for who's gonna represent them at this contest, while in France the singer is chosen by some kind of comitee (I don't even know how it really works actually...).

Anyway, if I understood correctly, the winner in Sweden this year is Eric Saade, with the song "Popular".



"Stop, don't say it's impossible, cause I know, it's possible". Hum... Well... lol.
I wanna a keep a good relationship with my Swedish friends so I won't share much of my opinion here ;) haha.
But still, this guy reminds very much of Zac Efron from High School Musical, both physically and with his song... Don't you think ?

I wish you all a very nice Sunday my dear friends, whatever you'll do.

Among other things, I'll go and see Black Swan, for the second time. I've seen it once already but I thought it would be interesting to see it again, knowing the end, maybe I would see or understand some things differently... And I really loved the movie :)

Bara svenska ?*

There has been a debate in the Swedish press the past few days, because in the company where I'm working, the decision has been made in one of the traffic areas that the employees should only speak Swedish.

I think it's a very delicate topic, especially as about 60 nationalities are represented among the company.

The main point there was that when the employees are gathering in the "rest area", no one feels excluded in the case where some other employees from a different nationality would speak another language than Swedish.

That's a good point.

However, from my experience - and I've been in this situation quite a lot the past 1,5 year - I'm not 100% sure that you need to make people sign a paper asking them to only speak Swedish at work. At least that's maybe not the most pedagogic way to do it.

I might be a bit naive, but I think that it's pretty natural that when some people from different nationalities are together, they use a language that everyone can understand. In my case that's English, in this one that would be Swedish then.

What do you think about it?

I think it's a very difficult subject and I don't really know where to stand because I also think that it's very easy to create confusion and that some people feel some excluded - either because they are not allowed to speak their own language, or because they wouldn't understand what some people from another nationality say when talk together.

Do you think it’s the role of the company to set that kind of language rule? Or maybe that it should try to educate its employees ?

Of course I would be more in favor of the second option. But is it realistic?

For the Swedish speaking people, here is the article I'm talking about : http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/bara-svenska-for-bussforare

Thanks for your contribution :)

*Only Swedish ?

1-2-3 news !

Wow, it's been a very long time since my last post... But I'm keeping myself busy both physically and mentally with all kinds of things lately and I don't always find the time and the energy to come and give some update.

Well, the first and main event of the past few weeks is that I've finally decided to go back to France at the end of my contract, which means at the end of August. So now it's only a few months left, less than 6 actually, and I already have the feeling that those 6 months will just fly by and be very intense. But I really wanna make the most of them, because even though I'm happy to come back to France "for real", I really like my life in Sweden and the people I've met here.

So the coming months will partly be dedicated to the research of a new job, but in Paris this time ! The coming back might be quite hard at the beginning because the rhythm will be completely different : I will work much later, won't have that much time to dance and train in general... But I guess it's just a matter of getting used to it, and I'll be closer to my family and my friends, which is really what I want.

The second news is that I'm going back to New York for one week in May !! I took my tickets today. That was an idea I had a few months ago, that I gave up for different reasons, but then I thought "F***, enjoy life girl !!". So I'm going there with my great homie Emilie. I'm almost counting the days now :)
And I also have a trip to Norway planned in June, and a long week-end in Copenhagen in April during Easter. When I told you that time was going to fly by...
However, I'll definitely spend the rest of the summer in Stockholm. It's gonna be my last months, and summer here is so delightful that it would be stupid to not enjoy it - especially after such a hard winter ! And then I'll be able to welcome all the "last minute visitors". :)

Then, 3rd news, or event... I'm going to register for a pole dance class starting from week 12. It's very trendy at the moment, everybody's trying pole dance, here in Stockholm at least. So I'm joining my sweet friend and amazing dancer Josefin. That will be very much fun I guess, and also very good strength training !

Well, that was for the last news. As you see, things are moving, changing :)

I hope you're all good !
And if you ever wanna visit (me) in Stockholm, hurry up !!

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).