Darle un besito a la bata!

Sorry for the lack of updates in here. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me after the last post! You will hear from me soon!

I am much better - just got back from a glorious week at the Festival de Jerez with my best friend Julie.

I badly needed a getaway, so after my class performance in Aracena (that's for another post), I snuck away in a car with Julie who came just to see me (THANK YOU!), and we escaped to Jerez to spend our traditional week at the Festival together.

We had a great time and it was like a holiday for me - only 1 hour 50 minutes of dancing each day. I chose to dance with Pilar Ogalla this year and that was the happiest decision I've made in a long time. I had so much fun! She taught us to dance Alegrías with the bata de cola.

With Pilar Ogalla - and the bata

I loved Pilar. She is a fantastic teacher. Very demanding, yet very patient. She is beautiful! She explained that the tail skirt is a capricious thing. It's a 'she', a feminine entity, and we have to treat 'her' like a good friend. She needs to be treated very lovingly and you are certainly not allowed to kick her around. In return, she will behave nicely and fly around just beautifully. And when she does, we have to give her a kiss! All in a figurative sense of course. But I had a lot of fun, and I certainly do love my bata and the alegrías we danced together.

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It helped to get away from Sevilla to realize how much I've really learned in the past 6 months. When you're locked in the classroom all day, it's difficult to keep perspective.

I'm realizing so many things about myself again. I guess flamenco has a way of doing that to you. I have realized that even after years, I wreck my life with guilt. I have a little voice at the back of my head that heaps shame and guilt on me no matter what I do. And the bad thing was that I was listening to it and believing it was right. And though in my logical, reasoning mind, I know it is not true, I was still under its power.

But I've realized that the voice is NOT me. That was a huge relief. So even though it tries to control my life with its demands of perfectionism and needs to satisfy everyone, I know now that it's not me who's talking. I want something else - to enjoy myself. I want to let my creative energies flow without fearing to make any mistakes or errors. My little voice keeps focusing on the finished result of whatever I'm doing. I want to enjoy the process - even if it's a little silly thing such as washing the dishes.

I was making life hell for myself, but luckily my body stepped in and told me something was going very wrong. It's time to stop with all the 'shoulds' and allow myself to go with the flow of life.

That means for my dancing, that I want to stop pursuing the crazy idea of becoming an accomplished dancer and give myself a burnout at school. I want to explore other paths, more playful ones, filled with joy and energy of just being there and moving my body to music. I have 4 months left here and am ready to enjoy them. Sevilla get ready!

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P.S. To make you jealous: The strawberries in Spain are just delicious now! ;)