Burlesque - My First Time

I have finally taken the plunge and started Burlesque dancing lessons.

Burlesque is something I have been skirting around for a few years now. Stalking websites, blogs, Facebook pages, to find out more of what is on offer where I live. Of course there's bugger all on offer where I live, nothing new there, but life circumstances i.e. kids older and more able to fend for themselves, I can opt out for an evening alone and know they won't die without me.

So I have signed up for a six week course titled "Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Burlesque" and it's appropriate for beginners, which is definitely what they're getting with me.

I drive an hour to get to the venue, yes I'm nothing if not committed, and then last night I spent twenty five minutes, yep TWENTY FIVE, driving around looking for a place to park. Inner city parking sucks the big one of an evening. Eventually I found a Pay car park and basically went "Fuck it!" it was $8 and I'd probably spent that already driving around wasting fuel. I found a spot and will admit I sat in the car and had a bit of a weep. I was frustrated and very late, and annoyed, and nervous, and honestly ready to just drive back home.

I grabbed my bag and quickly walked the dark scary street to the back door of the venue and rang the phone number on it to be let in. I forgot to get my instructors direct number so rang the numbers pasted to the door in a random order. A nice lady from the group doing lyra let me in.

The gorgeous instructor, Eva Vivacia, took one look at me and just hugged me. So I'm guessing I must've looked like frazzled shit, but I was there and there was no running away now - they'd all spotted me.

There were eight of us I think, I believe I'm once again the oldest but I'm used to that now and really am okay with it.

The first thing that struck me about the other ladies was a) they all wore black heels, and b) they all dressed up and wore make up and looked great. Some had on work out shorts but under them wore seamed stockings, our instructor wore stay ups, I think I may have been the only bare legged one there. Some ladies wore skirts, most were pulling off the vintage chic thing. I had on cropped pants, oh and I was in sandals. I wasn't sure initially if I could move in my low heels well enough.

Eva quickly ran through the chorey and I caught on quick. The song I'd already been listening to in the car so was familiar with the wording Eva would refer to as movement cues.

 Quickly the class moved on with additional chorey and run throughs. I was felling quite confident by the second run that I pulled out my shoes. So the shoe visual kinda went black, black, black, black, black, black, black... RED!

Shoes - Red, low heel, playing it safe

There was a lot of hip swinging, chest thrusting, sexual innuendo and suggestiveness. Very different to the type of pole dancing I do and that's not a bad thing, that's why I'm doing this. I want to bring that suggestiveness into my own style of pole dancing. I love sexy pole dance, I enjoy it, I'm very comfortable with it, but I feel I need to bring in more and that solution for me is through Burlesque.

The lesson was over too quickly, then I realised I had missed half of it driving around looking for a park. Today I find I've already forgotten half of the chorey, but it'll come back quick with a few run throughs next week. Might even record myself as a memory jog.

There was talk of a strappy gown to be worn at performance, and someone mentioned pasties *gulp*

It was just a snippet and I didn't catch it all, so I'm not sure what that all means. I'll keep you updated on that one as the weeks go by. Burlesque dancing is one thing, stripping and then stripping down to pasties... oh my - way, way, way out of my comfort zone and not sure I'm ready to go there. No point getting all concerned until I get the full story and I will definitely let you know.

So here is a pic of me "Baby Burlesque'er" doing the basic burlesque pose - The Burlesque Stand To Attention: one hip out, boobs out, one knee bent, one hand grabs your butt and the other your waist. It hurts your hip after a while, so that's a new flexibility and strength action to add to the repertoire of being bendy and strong. I'm still new at all this so in a years time who knows what the hell that pic will look like with more practice and more experience?

The Burlesque "Stand to Attention" pose

And just for a bit of a jolly between you and me, I thought you might like to see some selfie fail pics.

I really, really, really don't know how the young 'uns do it you know, They always seem so put together and working it. Not me, it's a challenge at the best of times!

Selfie fails... will I ever win at this evil 'selfie' activity?