When Exercise Is More Than That

Tonight I am feeling muscle fatigue but mental strength.  Adding a few more advanced ballet classes to my schedule has pushed me to a new level of endurance.   It takes much more time commitment not just in the dance studio but also allowing for the fatigue factor.  I have to find ways to adjust to my free time feeling more like just exhausted time.

Google phot ballet training

Some say ballet training is extremely hard on the body but one of my favorite teachers told me this is only true if you do not practice correctly. I agree, all of my injuries have come from faulty use of my body.  One time I admired a dancer in class so much I told myself I was going to jump with all my might as high as she did.  I went off in a corner and kept practicing the leap over and over.  That night taking a bath I noticed my foot was all black and blue on the bottom.  The next day I went to class and my teacher told me to go home, that I had broken all the blood vessels in the bottom of my foot and not to come back until the bruising was gone.  I have had uncountable minor injuries over the last twenty years that has prevented me from dance and those are times when I have really had to stay positive in body, mind, and spirit. 

So what is "normal" when it comes to exercise as we grow into our 60's, 70's. 80's, 90's and beyond? 
With healthcare the number one issue and concern on the nightly news and what appears like the whole world running for their lives literally and figuratively my question is how is running considered healthy over the long run?  The jury is still out on that one too.  I know they have running events for every major disease known to man but is running itself good for dis-ease?

Google photo of senior runners

My neighborhood is full of runners.  My guess is 80 percent are under age 40, 19 percent under age 60 and less than one percent over that.  So my question is how is running a healthy exercise?  Or is it more than that?  What is this journey other than creating the healthiest lifestyle we can find?  It seems most people buy into the idea we automatically deteriorate as we age so be it.  I am questioning other alternatives......

Is anyone else questioning alternatives to deteriorating?  

When You Fall In Love

Fashion faux paux's I think they call it.  An outfit that misses the mark. This is how I felt today wearing a dress that is too short and just not my style.

It's okay. It is too short.  A perfect example of why I normally do not purchase items when I go shopping.  It is getting harder to find anything that I consider "me".  From now on a renewed vow is to never buy anything  that I am not 100 percent in love with.  I already know I cannot trust anything I see online. I wonder though if there are any items of clothing out there that I can physically find at a store, feel the fabric, try it on, and know it is the one?  Is it just me or are clothes in general going down hill?  Why did I ever settle for something like this?  When I don't even wear stripes.  No it does not look any better when standing up straight.

 Later in the day I went shopping for leggings.  I tried on five pair of different labels all in the $65.00 to $99.00 price range just to see if they fit better than the $20.00 leggings.  The answer a resounding NOOOOO!  My lifestyle is perfect for leggings, top, and blazer to wear with heels, shooties, or boots.  I then looked for boots.  Of course the heel height I want is no where to be found and who decided we wanted slouch boots year after year after year?  If they are not slouch then they are flat soled and look like ones the guys wear under their jeans.

At least hunting for clothes I like is much more fun than looking for a man.  I cannot imagine how hard that is these days yet my two friends who married today found each other online and after four years of having great fun together they decided to go all the way.  They are the perfect couple and a great example that anything and everything is possible. 

Is Growing Older And Wilder A Good Idea?

This weekend I purchased a dress I first saw on an Asian girl that had come out of the dressing room to look in the daylight mirror and she looked great!!!  The dress is bright shades of greens, oranges, blues, and cremes stripes in chiffon on the top and a rose brown stretch pencil skirt with a black grosgrain  sash.  It looked so perfect on her I had to try it on.  I do not own a dress currently and will be attending a wedding this Saturday morning.  Bought it, did not fit in the shoulders so did some altering, ironed it and hung it in my closet.  Every time I look at it I say, "WHHHHHAT???"  I do not like it.  I never wear stripes. and I cannot relate to the style at all.  Can't return it because I made the alterations. 

Google image of Miuccia Prada

I've never had to be what I call "board room ready" or politically correct in my dress.  Creativity abounds and the only thing that I need is to feel me in my choices.  When I read a quote from Ms. Prada I totally agreed.  "Women always try to tame themselves as they get older, but the ones who look best are often a bit wilder, thinking about age all the time is the biggest prison women can make for themselves.."  I have no idea how my new dress is going to look on but my concern is I am not going to feel like myself.  We shall see.

Google image ladies in hats

 It at least will take me out of my comfort zone and maybe that will be fun?  Do you ever dress in a style that you think is new and different than you normally do?  I am not one who likes to dress in a costume of crazy hats and huge colored glasses but I also do not want to look like a J. Crew, Ann Taylor, Talbot's type mannequin.  I do think growing older and bolder is a good idea, but this new dress I think is just going to make me look like someone I don't know.  Oh well, maybe it will surprise me in a good way and I will want all stripes in my wardrobe from now on.  Is there a pattern or color that you do not wear?  If you did do you think you could change your mind?

Google image women in glasses

Do You Love What You Do

Here is the old-fashioned way to spend time alone...

Image of how I like to relax

Here is the 2012 way to spend alone time...

Google image woman relaxing

Taking Advanced Ballet classes along side professional dancers can be very intimidating.  There is an article in Runners World magazine titled Rewire Your Brain.  I have been trying it out but usually forget as soon as I walk in to the huge performance studio.  The idea is fear and doubts are natural emotions.  In order to not worry so much focus on the process of improving and surround yourself with positive thoughts of confidence.  This is helpful to me while getting dressed for class, and driving to class but the moment I walk through the doors I feel surrounded by the 2012 images of dancers while I feel like the old-fashioned one.

The article goes on to say the people are most intimidated by faster runners than anything else.  This is the true for ballet class.  It is not the combinations being too difficult that is worrisome, it is letting myself feel intimidated by the better dancers.   What is helpful so far is to just go for it.  The addiction to dance is like to ice cream.  At first I limit myself to a bowl at a time and soon no need for a bowl I just eat the whole carton.  When I first started at this new studio it was so stressful I had to limit myself to one class a week.   After three months I realized I did not have to hold myself back.

Now within one and the same class I can feel like I am slogging through blinding rain that will never end...

...to just enjoying the class rain and all...

....to some moments of pure bliss....

This is why I love to dance.

Anti-Aging Silver Bullet

Did I get your attention?  Have you noticed everything is being marketed as "anti-aging"?  Age defying lipstick, eye shadows and foundations.  Soon we will have anti-aging room deodorizers, anti-aging chocolates and please hurry with the age defying coffee.

Google photo Bobbi Brown age defying cream

I love to come across a personal blog that shares what they know not what others know.  If someone said they had found an anti-wrinkle cream I may try it.  So far I have not bought into any of the claims for skin creams because I think science tells me that creams do not go beneath the surface of the skin to change anything BUT if they can or do then the WARNING on the labels are such fine print and go on forever like the commercials for drugs on TV that cure whatever ails you but can also cause....and it is almost comical all of the warnings they include.

Google photo Queen Elizabeth 

 I have no idea the age of the Queen but if there were such a cream do you think she may have it or would use it?  Have you ever seen an older person with no Botox, and no face lifts that you wanted to ask what they used on their skin?  I have.  A few years ago I attended a performance by Sahomi Tachibana a Japanese dancer that abides here in Portland, Oregon.

Sahomi Tachibana

She is so lovely her beauty is mesmerizing as I watched her dance.  Her complexion is amazing.  I asked my friend who knows her well if they have special creams in Japan that create such beautiful skin?  After the performance my friend asked her what she uses on her skin and her reply, Dove soap.  That's all.

As noted she is a dancer and has been since her early days when quarantined here in the States.  Her story is fascinating and can be found on Oregon Public Broadcasting.  Also reading Master Class by Peter Spiers he lines out four elements for anti-aging in his book.
       1.  Socializing
       2.  Moving
       3.  Creating
       4.  Thinking
In the Moving category he gave examples of running, golf, walking, etc. and dancing.  He added, "Dance is the silver bullet for anti-aging."  Since I am a dancer and have been for the past twenty years I agree with him.  Yet I have plenty of wrinkles.

What I have found personally as for beauty tips that do work for me is for whiter teeth instead of using the Crest white strips I pour peroxide on my toothbrush after each brushing.  It not only kills germs but I think after a year my teeth are getting whiter.  One other tip is for fuller lashes when applying mascara use two different brands at the same time.  It does not matter what brands.  I was going to give up on mascara but I just looked tired.  Do you have a beauty tip that works for you?

I feel at a certain stage our face reflects our inner life and the best enhancer is a smile.

Cell phone photo today of Reality.  Bare face, lipstick, mascara

Is It Your Attitude Or Your Lifestyle

Over at Advanced Style we have Ari posting a soon to be released documentary about Iris Apfel.  The promo looks truly inspiring even though her lifestyle and mine are light years apart.  She claims style is all attitude, attitude, attitude and I agree.  But I would add ones lifestyle dictates how we dress even more than attitude.  She attends gala events and art exhibits in New York it appears on a regular basis.  It also seems she has a lifestyle of the rich and famous that few of us have.  Yet I agree with her message whole-heartedly that we each could come out of our shell and express ourselves even more than we do with the clothes we wear.  No matter what our lifestyle.

Google photo Iris Apfel 

 Now this looks like a million dollars but way too cumbersome for the way I work and my general activities.  I work in an environment where "anything goes" so I can have as much fun and creativity in my choices as I can come up with.   I like to take risks and it is fun to experiment with different looks.  The trick is looking elegant for the occasion.  Sitting at a computer on the phone does not speak to a wardrobe of clothing the same as the ladies who "lunch".  Taking five ballet classes a week  means when not at work I am going to and from the dance studio where  I only like to wear items I can throw in the washer and dryer.  When out and about on my own at the neighborhood library, the grocery store, shopping at the malls and boutiques I do not mind drawing attention to myself but I want it to be subtle.  A look that is noticeable but more like a pleasant scent than one that draws stares.

Google photo Iris Apfel  definitely not a part of my world

 In other words I think my "ATTITUDE" is fun loving and free,  romantic and flamboyant at times, but my lifestyle is more demure.  I know their are no rules and yet I wonder where my inner critique voice comes from?  I do not have someone in my past that I can identify as my teacher on how to dress. Do you know where your style comes from?  Where did you get your ideas about "good taste"?  Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie O, seem to be a standard.  Is it from the movies and celebrities that speak to us about our own personal style?  Or is it simply a comfortable look that blends in with your environment?  Is it personality type or economics?  What is you attitude when getting dressed each day?

Deciding Not To Wear Eye Makeup

When going through my eating disorder over the years at one point I was extremely weak.  I could walk down the sidewalk of a 4 lane commercial street and the breeze from the cars going past made me feel it would blow me over.  Along the way on that journey I had also decided I did not need to wear make-up anymore.  I had started experimenting with makeup in the sixth grade and by now I was in my forties and slowly stopped.    I did not connect the dots until much later that it was all  part of a sign I was in trouble.  By the time I went for help I was told my kidneys had all but shut down due to my dieting. 

That was many years ago when my desire to be thin over powered my sensibilities and after endless trial and error I wised up to realize the number one priority was to find a way to feed myself to be healthy and then let the thinness evolve into itself.  Thankfully I found a way to have a diet that keeps me strong enough mentally and physically to pursue my ballet passion now and be a reasonable weight.  Of course in the ballet world one cannot be too thin.  As they say in the modelling world as well.  The lines are just either more elegant or just what we are conditioned to think are more beautiful who knows?

Google photo Linda Rodin

Yesterday as I was putting my makeup on before ballet class I decided not to wear mascara anymore.  Thinking maybe it is too harsh for my look and to just stop.  Then today I clicked on  the Advanced Style blog and found Linda Rodin a model who is 10 years younger than myself.  She says she does not wear eye makeup.  I thought aha, one can look nice without it.  But checking out her photos she ALWAYS wears glasses.

Google photo of Linda Rodin

  Since I never wear glasses of any kind ever I am now having second thoughts.  Tonight I have decided to wear tons of eye shadow and no mascara.  This makes me realize that I have way too much time to spend thinking about "nothing" and need to take a creative writing class.

Linda also said she thinks we should age naturally instead of looking like an old person with a face lift.  She has created her own face cream and she seems to have beautiful skin.  It is available for purchase.  It is supposed to have all natural ingredients but something has to be added to it for shelf life?    It seems to me if a serum or cream for wrinkles actually works then it would be the same as a drug where there is always a cause and effect.  When one problem is addressed it causes something else to be effected.  Does this make sense?

Has anyone tried Linda's oils sold at Barney's?