Another Pants Bites the Dust

It's two weeks into my final three months of dance training, and aside from some initial trouble adapting, I think it's going well. However, as the subject mentions, I have yet another pair of pants that my dance boot-ay will no longer fit into. Sigh.

This was upsetting at first - I'm supposed to be in shape, so why am I putting on so much weight? One characteristic of the weight gain is that it's strictly junk-in-the-trunk (and thighs)-based. After thinking for two seconds, it's obvious. The primary stance that we use for dance is called 'aramandi', which is like a ballet plier, but lower and more painful.

Goodbye, skinny jeans

If I'm going to be dancing around for 2 hours like this, I'm going to need some ass-based reinforcements. 

Even if, logically, I should be gaining weight, I still feel uneasy about it. One of the books I got recently, Diet For Dancers, is certainly not helping to assuage my anxieties. For one, the typical weight range they list for women dancers of my height (5'10"/177cm) is 135-149 lbs (that's roughly 61 to 68 kg). My weight is 156 lbs (mass 70.8 kg) and rising. The book also talks about creepy dance-world practices like trainers feeding their students amphetamines and the popularity of smoking as weight control. Sketchtown.

Body image is definitely one area where Indian dance has western dance beat. There is not typical Bharatanatyam physique. There tend to be patterns - it's certainly not common for dancers to be overweight. But there is no pressure to be skinny while staying fit and strong. Most Bharatanatyam dancers have builds closer to soccer players or track stars, which makes sense given that they're doing an equally stressful activity that demands muscle. I have yet to encounter dancers who obsess about weight and trade frightening diet tips.

Since I'm in this wonderful athletic world free from obsessive body image ideals, I'm trying extra hard to get past my own hang ups. Most of the people I dance with are teenage girls. The last thing I want to do is introduce them all to the world of body image obsession. It smacks a little too much of colonial arrivals bearing their small pox and such.

So here's Bharatanatyam Bootay!

Corporate Sponsorship

While I'm not usually a fan of excessive branding, I made an exception this week for my new TOM's shoes. For those of you living outside of hipster circles, TOM's shoes are very basic canvas (and occasionally other organic) material slip on shoes.

They are fairly expensive for what they are - about $50 at their most basic. However, they are incredibly comfortable and cover the tops of my feet, which is key for keeping my feet warm in San Francisco's perpetually coolish climate. Also, they had a strong endorsement from one of my dance classmates, Meena, who has excellent taste in pretty much everything. So I finally got a pair of the red ones.

The TOM's website has a fun feature called "How we wear them". As far as I can tell, there has yet to be a "We wear them to Bharatanatyam class!" posting, so Meena and I decided to submit one. It's going to take another day or two to get "approval" (presumably they have human screeners to weed out "We do <gross sexually explicit activity> in our TOMs!" posts). In the meantime, here's our sneak preview:

Lord Shiva, atop His vehicle the bull, both wearing their red TOMs

Thanks to Meena for being such a great sport, and to Shriya for taking such a great picture.

Training for Nerds

In hopes of maximizing my gains and minimizing my efforts, I've been searching for training resources on teh internets and on amazon. In particular, I'm looking for training information geared at women that discusses how to train around cramps and other sugar and spice questions.

Results thus far have been disappointing. Do a search for 'women athlete' and you get a bunch of pictures of women in bikinis and 'The 15 Sexiest Female Athletes to Watch'. Barf. Refining the search to something more specific, like 'women athlete training', yields less objectifying results, but equally frustrating anti-women-athlete information like 'Female Athletes Compromise Their Fertility With Intense Training', although I guess that's helpful in that I can worry less about 'doing an arangetram for two'.

Even on amazon, I found 1 (1!) book on training specific to women and it was published in 1995. The book is Paula Newby-Fraser's Peak Fitness for Women.

In case you've never heard of Paula Newby-Fraser (as I hadn't), her website helpfully explains that "Paula Newby-Fraser is the only triathlete to transcend the sport. Certainly, she is the greatest triathlete of all time" and ranks her as the 5th most popular female athlete of the last 25 years (defined as 1972-1997). The book has timely exercise advice like "(t)he horrible lesson of breast implants has shown women of the 90s that true fitness means having an attractive shape because you've sweated it out, you've done the exercise it takes, not just paid for the plastic surgery". Amen!

Aside from the occasional dated statements, it's actually a very decent book. Newby-Fraser even explains the rising popularity of Pilates, which impressed me. Her physiological descriptions of stretching and strength training sound very legit to me. For instance, stretching and flexibility are important for keeping muscles long, which in turn is important when your body is under stress and building up lactic acid, which shortens the muscles. This was all news to me.

The major shortcoming is the book is geared towards triatheletes and other endurance sport athletes. Talking with my student teacher yesterday, there's really no way to adapt an endurance training regime to dance. So my next reads will be dance-specific. I have a book on conditioning and another for nutrition.

In the meantime, if any of you have suggestions for really great training literature, especially related to the ladies, dance, or are just really well written in terms of science, please let me know!

Quantity is not Quality

By the end of last week's new beefed up training schedule, I was incredibly exhausted by Monday evening's dance classes. Part of this I attribute to (brace yourself) my starting on the rags. At first, it was the only thing I attributed it to. I had slept plenty every night. I had been eating a ton over the weekend. Then I realized that while I'd been eating a ton, a lot of it was junk.

It wasn't as if I was sitting on my couch eating potato chips and drinking Mountain Dew. As with any weekend, I had merely eaten out a lot while I was hanging out with friends. Saturday night was my first visit to California Pizza Kitchen. Their menu was atrocious. I wanted a basic tomato-sauce based pizza with minimal cheese and a big selection of vegetables (and vegetarian, obviously). There was nothing in the menu that fit that bill, and worse, they don't offer the ability to add vegetables/toppings to whatever you order. Lame. Also, everything was approaching 1000 calories, which is incredibly high compared to what I normally eat in a dinner. So I went with something that sounded pretty vegetably: roasted artichoke and spinach. It tasted okay, though it was incredibly salty from all the cheese and limited vegetables.

Over salted and under nourished

Sunday, I went out for a delicious buffet at Sakoon in Mountain View. That in itself wasn't necessarily bad, but my exhausted post-dance brain wanted immediate happiness and dove straight for the paneer and veg manchurian. For those of you unfamiliar with veg manchurian, it is a staple of Indian Chinese food (which is a completely inauthentic, racist Indian interpretation of what Chinese food is) entirely composed of corn meal and ajinomoto (ie MSG). It is helladelicious. It is absolutely terrible for you. Naturally, I ate a lot of it. So in hindsight, it was no surprise I felt like crap on Monday.

This week, I've ordered a book on women's athletic training. Hopefully it will have more advice than just to avoid CPK and MSG.

How to Cook Something Vegetarian

One of my post-arangetram resolutions is to learn to feed myself like an adult. Based on some of my showcased recipes, it's pretty clear I have a long way to go. In that spirit, my boyfriend bought me some winning cook books to get me started. After a few episodes of Mildred Pierce on a lazy Sunday night, I was adequately inspired to give it a go. Since I wanted something sugary and I had some freshly purchased limes, I went with the Coconut Lime Bar recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

After about 10 minutes of preparation, I was reminded of how much work baking is, but I persevered. Another 50 minutes or so, and I had an edible-looking coconut lime sheet.

Lime: Bad for dying hair, Good for feeding tehmle

Taste verdict: delicious!

Future modifications: less sugar, more lime

The View From Here

Friday was the first day my team had an official San Francisco office. After a morning pilates session, I hopped on public transit and arrived at the office in less than half an hour. In addition to an almost non-existant commute, a central location, and prime spot in the office, the cafe has the best view evar!

I could get used to this

While it means I don't have a space to practice dance on Fridays, the rest of my dance schedule is more than enough to make up for it. This also compensates for the transit times on weekends down to the south bay. The downside is that this is technically a pilot project for this quater only and there's no guarantee it will continue beyond that. Also, I have 3 interns coming this summer, and once they arrive I will need to be colocated with them in Mountain View until they leave at the end of August.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

The New Deal

Since my arangetram has been the horizon, I've had a mental plan of the phases of preparation I'd go through:

1. > 6 months away (3-6 hours a week practice)
2. 3-6 months away (5-8 hours a week practice)
3. 1-3 months away (10+ hours a week practice)
4. 1-4 weeks away (I'm frightened to ask)
5. Week of (Can't even imagine)

This week, I crossed the boundary from Phase 2 to Phase 3. This means finding an extra 2-5 hours a week in my schedule in which to dance, not to mention the extra sleeping, eating, and recovery time required in response. It's taken some juggling, but I think I've managed. It's clear that dance basically owns my life at this point though:

• Adavu classes every weekend instead of every other weekend, + 2 hours of dance after class

Adavus are the Basic Bharatanatyam Steps - this is one example

• Switch from Sunday adavu classes (at 9:30 and 10:30am) to Saturday adavu class (noon) to retain rights to sleeping in - the Sunday mornings have really been killing me and were not sustainable every week
• Private classes with my student teacher every week instead of every other week (after Monday group class, which saves having to do more driving)
• (Still not clear whether this is happening, but I expect it to) Weekly classes with Auntie instead of biweekly
• (Still arranging this as well) Drop 2nd group class in favour of the extra private classes
• On nights I'm getting home late, eat dinner before heading home, even if I have to bring dinner to Google, which is sacrilege
• Work in San Francisco Google office instead of Mountain View to save some of the mind numbing commute (This is by the grace of my wonderful boss who's letting us try out this configuration until July)
• Weekly pilates (either Friday or Sunday, when not going to the south bay)
• 2-3 Hours of Abhinaya practice at home on Sundays

Abhinaya: The Mime-y Stuff

• Bedtime at 10pm on weekdays

Also, the marathon-type scheduling is out the window. Turns out an arangetram isn't a whole lot like a marathon aside from it being extremely grueling. This all represents a pretty substantial change in my schedule, but it was expected and it's feeling a lot more doable than I thought it would. Getting a day a week to work in SF is a huge win. We'll see how long I can handle it.

Gori Sings the Blues

This week has been disappointing dance-wise. I started off exhausted from a show, only to find out later in the week that I didn't perform up to expectations. I also got worked today in my private class so I feel like I'm in even worse shape. Being all tired, mentally and physically, I feel like if I see another ankle bell I might go crazy.

At least the costume looked nice

What if I quit now? It's not like dance is my job. I wouldn't be deported (I think - don't quote me on that). I would lose some sunk costs, but I've dished out less than half of the thousands of dollars for all the expenses so far. The thing that I couldn't handle, though, is the disappointment.

First, I would disappoint my teachers and dance colleagues. I'm not Indian, I'm not even American, I'm very new to my classes (only 3 years compared to 5-10 for the others), but I do feel connected to them. They've invested a lot of time in me in spite of all cultural signals screaming "THIS PERSON DOES NOT BELONG!".

Second, I have some very excited friends and family schlepping cross-continent and borders to see this thing. While most of them can't pronounce 'arangetram' (though some of them are getting it these days), and are foggy on the whole concept, I can tell they're enthusiastic. The saris and kurtas are locked and loaded.

Third, I would be (cliche!) disappointing myself. The closer I get to my arangetram, the bigger the challenge it seems. It's been my goal since I started dance in 2003 as the awkward 20 year-old white woman in the back of Shankarananda Kalakshetra's class for children 5-8 years old. I never thought I'd get this far. In a lot of ways, the Bharatanatyam world is binary: the arangetram'ed and the non-arangetram'ed, and the world does not round up.

Thus, quitting is not an option.

But I have 3 months to go, and mentally I want cry, pout, and nap in some combination and forget about it all. My main comfort (aside from having awesome family and boyfriend and job and apartment and basically the best life ever) is that a year ago I was equally despaired about my job. I had just experienced the most massive professional failure since graduating from school as the project I was working on crashed in a spectacular and non-recoverable. After months of feeling unmotivated, I turned to a few mentors whose opinions I trusted and followed all of their advice. I minimized the amount of unproductive work I had, emphasized projects with strong growth potential, and defragmented my day to get the most out of the time I was putting into work. Now, I love my job again and I don't feel like each day is a struggle (at least not in a bad way).

For dance, I don't have months to get it together. My plan for now is to basically throw myself at the mercy of my dance teachers and do whatever they say. We'll see how that goes. 

Post Show Recap

I've been remiss in keeping up to date on the dance show happenings. tehmle FAIL. The official excuse could be that I still haven't got any pictures of me and my group dressed up all pretty. The real excuse is that I've been totally wiped out and I was taking time off from work and very happy to be away from computers and all things implying responsibility.

Anyways.

I think the show went well. No one in my group tripped over a box this year, which was an improvement over last year. Although every year I think it will get easier, getting ready took forever and required a lot of work. Fortunately I had some help from Kjirsten, my adopted dance mom, who does my hair for most of my shows.

Hair + Extension with Abrupt Colour Transition

After a few hours of hair, make up, and costume donning, we got out and did our thing.

 Where's White Girl?

Our piece was 10 minutes, but when I got off stage I felt like I'd been dancing for hours. Not sure how this whole 2 hour show thing is going to work out. Y'all might want to bring some reading material in case I need a break. The costume itself is partly to blame. Our practice attire is pretty light without all the jewelry and ankel bells. My back ached for a good 2 days after the show. It actually didn't feel that badly while I was dancing, but once the adrenaline wore off I was out.

Following the show, I scooted off to Google to get all the regalia off before the longish drive home.

Free At Last

While I was completely spent, I was happy with how the show went. All the effort everyone put into getting my appearance just right paid off, or so I think. My Sagely Dance Teacher tells me my performance was not bad, but not quite up to where she thinks it should be. Sigh. With 3 months to go, I'm going to have to work on expression for sure and more stamina.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped - Kjirsten for doing a pro job of my hair, Rasika for showing me how to wear her costume right, Auntie for loaning me the costume, Mrs. Venkatesh for bringing lunch, Phi and Shubhie for cheering me on after sitting through 2 hours of show already, Shriya, Meena, Mamta, and Usha for being super great dancers to dance with, and of course my awesome boyfriend who loans me cars, brings me dinner, and is my number one cheerleader.

An Ode to My (Boyfriend's) Ride

It's the last night before my dance show, and I want to express my appreciation for my ride. Technically, it is not my ride - I don't own a car. I normally use zipcar, but in the lead up to a show, the late night rehearsals and consecutive weekend day drives make it a little pricey. So on occasions like this, I turn to my boyfriend and his lovely car.

Before you start speculating as to how much of a gold digger I am, consider the car:

Sweet Ride Circa 1992

Yes, it is a lovely, white (or at least it was at one point) Volvo station wagon from 1992. But don't judge a book by it's cover - consider this interior:

Note: The laptop is in no way connected to the car

Those wires hanging out are the result of the stereo theft the car suffered last month. Below the wires, a very high tech set of exposed fuses to permit the driver maximum control of the cars extensive features. For instance, maybe you don't want your seats to actually heat up when you hit the heat-up-seats light. It's what makes Volvos so safe. This picture shows the latest upgrade to the current sound system. Last weekend's attempt involved playing an episode of This American Life on my phone. I had to hold the phone near my ear because of all the charming ambient noise that the car lovingly produces.

For the record, I think the car is an endearing feature of my boyfriend. The car, even with the window repair, is extremely cheap to maintain. It's solidly built, so driving home late on the 280 is a less frightening prospect. And it's a dream to park. Actually, not really. But I really appreciate that my (possibly former?) boyfriend provides the material support for me to follow my dreams, in addition of course to all the moral support.

Just to show that my boyfriend isn't the only one clinging to the past, I should disclose that until very recently, this was my phone:

Nokia 6600: The Most Glorious Phone Ever Made

Also for the record, I only stopped using the phone because the microphone no longer works. It's true that it's possibly the oldest phone in the universe. Oh wait...

This phone in my boyfriend's car has it beat by a few decades.