I am going to get my arse whipped in Bikram Yoga class tomorrow. I’ve been meaning to try a class forever but the coward in me always chickened out (same goes for “I wanna run a marathon!” and “I will no longer eat chocolate after dinner!”).

But alas. I decided that tomorrow is the day. 7pm sharp.

Oh god it’s going to be so gross. All those sweaty people and me (beetroot face, remember?) in the middle.

Have you tried something new (to you) lately?

Anyway, I still remember the day when my mum asked me what I wanted to do. After all, everybody has a hobby. So I said “dancing and swimming”. Well with swimming I probably meant “jumping into the water” since it’s never really been my favourite thing to do. And I also don’t know where the dancing comes from but alas, that’s what I said. I think we quickly rejected synchronized swimming and decided that we could check out ballet.

And that’s when our love story started. (The one of me and ballet, not me and my mum obv.)

I was six years old when I started taking classes and loved the graceful moves. Granted, my own moves weren’t Swan Lake material but in the (roughly) 10 years I did ballet I had quite a good time (although my teacher – a chain smoking woman from Slovakia – was rather terrifying sometimes and my entire family saw me hopping around on stage in a chicken costume –not the most spectacular moment of my life-).

In my teens I gave it up because I got bored with it. I was a teenager and wanted something different. So I did Jazz dance. And then Taekwon-Do (drastic change, I know). And of course the occasional (when the weather was good) run with my dad.

But still I sometimes missed my ballet days. I secretly wanted to take a class again though without committing to a fixed course where you have to show up every week at the same time.

Long story short: I took a ballet class yesterday! Actually it was after a kettle bell class that left me aching like crazy due to the fact that all light kettle bells were gone and I had to struggle with the 6kg one (those who can handle them easily: I bow to you).
But holy moly did I love ballet (and the kettle bell class, even though my face resembled beets). Granted, the arabesque made me realize that my bum really is bigger than when I was 16 (I kind of hoped that I was just imagining it) but I felt like I was on familiar grounds.

Well the class was called Ballet-Barre and has a bigger focus on the workout effect (with Beyoncé blaring in the background) but in the second part of the hour we did some “classical stuff”. I really want to go to ballet regularly from now on! I’m really glad I discovered Frame. It’s not your usual dance/fitness/yoga/pilates centre but definitely more alternative (what else do you expect in Shoreditch?) and extremely lovely. It has a very relaxed feeling about it.

I’m off to an other class now! This time it’s boxing! (Don’t knock it before you’ve tried it… today’s my first time!). And afterwards we’ll pop by Brick Lane again and eat some amazing food – hooray!

Q: What did you like doing as a kid? Can be classes or not.. just tell me of your hobbies that you had (and maybe still have?)!

PS: Happy Mother’s Day!! I miss my mum!!!