Back to Ballet

In the two decades since quitting professional ballet, I have not done any "proper" exercise regimen. 2003 saw me qualify as a New York Ballet Workout instructor, but teaching had to stop which Little A was conceived, as cervical polyps made exercise while pregnant an impossibility.

Since Little A's birth I have wanted to get back to dance for exercise, and over the past year have managed about two dozen classes over the course of a few months, thanks to a newly opened Senior Centre conveniently located near Little A's school.

Recently though, I was made aware of adult ballet classes offered at a studio very near our apartment, taught by none other than one of my former dance partners. A new year, and a newly straightened spine meant I had no more excuses but to begin classes. And so I did.

Available from Level 0 (no experience) through 2 (intermediate adult), I found the classes to be just what I needed at this point in my life. Scheduled ideally in the mid-morning, I begun at the bottom, aiming to work my way up.

For two months now, I have faithfully attended two or three classes a week, and have seen, and felt, myself slowly getting back into shape. I may never perform Sleeping Beauty or do a 180 degree arabesque penchee again, but moving across a floor to classical music and feeling my body respond in a way it once did with ease is empowering, and apparently inspiring to my classmates who have never danced before but are finding it enjoyable at this stage in their lives.

I look forward to my dance classes and still have a ways to go before I consider myself back in full shape. It is a discipline my body knows, and once it is learned it can never really be erased from one's life. Dance on, then! 

Field Trip

In the nearly three years that Little A's school has been operational, the students have not gone on a field trip, despite my numerous suggestions over the years (science museum, petting zoo, children's museum, aquarium). Until last week.

Finally, after what must have been much begging by the students as well as some parents, the teachers organised a day at Kidzania. Little A had not yet been, despite its location just a few streets away from our apartment building. Opened sometime last year, it has been a huge hit among the middle class youth of Manila, as it seems to be in every city which is lucky to have one.

While the other classes decided that their pupils would experience everything together, as a group, Little A's teachers let the kids in his class pick and choose their own activities.

Set loose, Little A first headed for the theatre at the centre of the "town". When he had explored it thoroughly, I suggested we find an activity. We walked around and on the second level he found the perfect first "job," at a greengrocer's. This was followed by a stint as a pretend rock star, a veterinarian to stuffed animals, and a gardener. Lunch was with the rest of the group, then we waited until the afternoon highlight, his firefighter workshop.

In spite of the number of children at the venue and the minimal supervision he required (special needs kids were allowed an adult in the activity room with them while typical ones were made to do everything on their own), I felt Little A did very well overall, and liked that the facilitators at each activity, particularly the greengrocer's, were quick to adapt the "lessons" to his non-verbal condition so that he never felt left out.

While there were numerous other activities still left untried, there will be many more times to visit Kidzania again, and I look forward to seeing Little A adapt more and more each time.

Weekend Activities

These days, most kids spend indoor time glued to iGadgets, or, for the lucky parents, physical or eBooks. Even luckier folks have children who love arts and crafts, kitchen work, or board games.

Thankfully, Manila is now catching up with the rest of the world and setting up indoor activity centres like soft play areas, and most recently, trampoline parks!

Big and Little A enjoyed jumping one Saturday; rather, Little A enjoyed it and Big A was completely exhausted within the 45 minute time limit. 

I liked that the monitors maintianed a strict ratio of one person per trampoline and a limited number on the "common" ones. Little couldn't jump from one to the next, sadly, unless the next wasn't occupied.

Still, it was a fun hour and one we will certainly do again.

In indoor-outdoor fun, Little A's horse-loving cousin turned twelve, and since our city has limited locations for actual riding, the party consisted of the kids painting papier mache "taka" horses. Little A is better at imitation now, and when he saw another girl's blue horse, he wanted to paint his the same way. 

We were also visited by the Mr. Men, longtime favourites in our home. Little A has a limited edition print I picked up in London, of the Mr. Men and Little Misses on a double decker bus. For ages when younger, their Great Alphabet Hunt was his favourite thing to watch, so being able to ride the "actual" bus was a treat!

Finally, a new soft play centre has opened just two streets away from our home. This gives us another alternative from the one further down the road.

Summer is upon us, so most free time  be spent indoors out of the scorching heat, so it's wonderful that there are so many options for gadget-free activitiy.

Fantastic Fukuoka

After last year's unexpected blessing of numerous overseas trips, the day after Christmas saw an airline seat sale and had us booking tickets to another new destination, Fukuoka. With two other couples and three additional friends tagging along, there were nine of us going in all, in the last weekend of February.

Knowing very little about this city but loving Japan, even in the winter, off we went.

To our delight, the coastal town was much larger and more cosmopolitan than any of us expected. We spent the long weekend on a ramen eating binge, mainly, and doing a little shopping.

My favorite part of the trip came on the second day, when three of us took a local bus trip to an outlet mall by the water. Not only did we eat the freshest sushi I've ever had, but on the way back the bus made one of its usual stops, which happened to be located outside a primary school. About half a dozen children between ages 8 and 12 got on, looking like a cross between Madeline's friends and the Von Trapp children in their uniforms.

The students quietly found places to sit or stand, and, as we entered the city, one by one left the bus at their own stops and from there made their way home alone on foot. Not one parent met a child at a bus stop. This is something I had never experienced before, and it made me marvel anew at the cultural wonder that I have found Japan to be.

While we have yet to take Little A to visit this amazing country, we definitely will do so, and hope he comes to love it as much as we already do.

Pet Day

This year, Little A's school celebrated Pet Day. For an animal lover like my son, an event such as this was miles better than Santa coming at Christmas.

In the course of his youTube video watching over the last few months, he managed to come across one-time cooking show host Rachel Ray's human interest programme, particularly the episodes featuring animals. Now a favourite on his playlist, my son has shown me that one blind lady in the USA has not the usual seeing eye dog but a guide horse called Panda, a Shetland Pony.

On findining out that a Shetland pony would be part of the animal interaction opportunities at Pet Day, Little A was all the more excited. 

Before meeting and greeting the other animals though, the schoolchildren got to play with some therapy dogs. Their trainer was a neighbour of ours, and Little A was familiar with her dogs, but I was pleased to see him feeding another dog a piece of carrot, a first for him in terms of animal interaction.

The pony was the last animal in the petting parade, and each child was encouraged to sit on its back for a photo. I had to correct the teachers whokept telling the children they could "ride" the animal by announcing to Little A that he would only sit on it for a few seconds, as riding meant going from point A to B on the horse's back, which was certainly not on the agenda. 

My son had other ideas, naturally. After hanging back so he was the last pupil in his class to be photographed astride the pony, he mounted it again by himself and gently tapped the horse's sides with his heels to try and move it forward. The pony complied, but I quickly said that it wasn't allowed and that had to hop off quickly, which he did. Promises of properly going riding soon satisfied him, but come dismissal time he raced back to the playground to see his new friend only to find it had gone. Perhaps he will see it again next year.

Ten Years Married

This month, Big A and I celebrate a decade of marriage, and mark 15 years to the day we met.

Sometimes it seems like those carefree single days are a lifetime ago, and perhaps they are. Back then our social lives were a whirl, with late nights spent out with each other or other friends several times a week despite the day jobs we both maintained. We lived in the hippest part of town, a short walk from the best bars and trendiest new restaurants.

These days, we still live in the (new, decade or so old) hippest part of town, but now we prefer to stay home in the evenings, relaxing after the days' work and anticipating the next morning's early school run. Nights out consist of the occasional movie, or dinner for a friend's birthday. Alcohol is consumed with a mind to the early morning wake-ups courtesy of Little A, and the fact that our now middle-aged bodies don't recover as quickly as they used to.

Much has changed in Big A's and my relationship in ten years of marriage, as it must with all couples; many challenges have been thrown at us financially, employment-wise, and as a result of Little A's autism diagnosis. But thankfully we have managed to weather them together, despite the issues that plague all marriages. 

One decade down then, and overall we have been blessed far more than challenged as a family. May the next few decades be just as kind.

New Year's Maintenance

2016 is here. And with it, new resolutions. I normally don't make any, but this year I vowed to be healthier. And that meant addressing issues long neglected.

When newly pregnant with Little A, I was put on bed rest for a few weeks in the first trimester due to bleeding from polyps on my cervix. I had to work from home, and was forced to do this from a sideways reclining position which was the closest I could get to sitting upright.

As a result, something twisted in my left hip, near the coccyx. It didn't bother me unless I pushed for full spinal and hip rotation mobility, which is not something one really needs when mothering an infant, doing housework and performing other basic life chores. Sometimes though, when seated for a long time, I would feel a twinge, and when doing my eventual, sporadic, exercise classes the past couple of years, I knew something in my spine was rather misaligned.

This month, after a dozen years' absence, I finally paid that long overdue visit to my chiropractor.

At age 11, I was informed by my ballet teacher that my hips, ribcage, and shoulders were not the straight line they should be and in fact curved rather like an S. It was visible from the mirror, when looking at my body in a leotard. My mum has mild scoliosis, so we assumed I did too. I was taken to an orthopedic doctor to see about straightening my spine, as at this time I was already applying to ballet schools in the UK.

The orthopedic doctor informed my parents that my degree of scoliosis was such that "it was a miracle I could walk properly", and that the ideal treatment was to put me in a spinal brace, with no more ballet in my future.

Thankfully, a second opinion was sought from an alternative practitioner. The chiropractor ran his hands gently up and down my back, then told me to lie on the special bed and with a few quick pulls and tugs, corrected the nearly 2 inch difference in my legs, straightened my hips to an even keel, and aligned my ribcage and my shoulders. I stood up slightly taller than before, feeling "straight" for perhaps the first time ever.

It took another visit or two to get things fine tuned, as I got used to an entirely new centre of balance in my ballet classes. But to all intents and purposes, my spine was straight, I could carry on dancing, and all was well.

I continued to see this chiropractor yearly when I was in Manila, and found an osteopath to see in London while at boarding school.

Fast forward to the end of my dancing career, and the beginning of my corporate one. No more regular, demanding physical activity meant less chances for spinal misalignment, so my chiropractic visits dropped to once every two or three years until Little A was conceived and I stopped going for over a decade.

I figured that after the pregnancy would come years of baby carrying, which would no doubt throw my alignment further out of whack. With Little A now 8 and nearly as tall as I am, it was time to finally get my back back in order.

It had been so long since I'd been to the clinic that my old chiropractor was no longer in full-time practice. He had taken on a partner - his daughter, who had been a pigtailed pre-teen in a photograph on his desk all the years I'd been coming to the clinic. She was fully qualified now, and strong enough to wrestle 300 lb men's spines into submission.

These days I walk straight once more. And now I have no excuse but to start the second phase of my New Year's Healthier Me programme - exercise classes.