Burlesque Starter Kit

Red Snapper's Burlesque Starter Kit

$60.00
Sundays, September 11th-25th 3-4:20pm

$60 for three week mini-series  - Perfect for satisfying your curiosity about burlesque. This mini-series will provide you with the basics of bumps, grinds, shimmies, shakes, glove peels and boa work. Choreography taught in class will put your new skills to immediate use. Bring your own gloves and boa or purchase them in class for $10.

Classes held at Studio A Dance
2306 Hyperion Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027

Sign up here!

Dance Class Challenge: 51/100 - Jazz Dance

Three things are significant about this post:

1. I'm over the hump. Only 49 more classes to tackle in the next 3.75 months.
2. I love Bill's jazz class at Studio A. I always feel challenged and I never feel like I can't eventually learn how to do things correctly (turns, pas de bourrées and such).
3. Saturday's class ran long (1:45) and it was 90 degrees outside by the time class ended, so I burned some awesome calories.

I do have a plan of attack for the rest of the year. I have to find a ballet class on Monday and Wednesday evenings so I can start leaving work early for classes, hopefully before the girl who is on leave returns. I've got my eyes open for a ballroom dance class with the mister (preferably six weeks on a night that works well for me). Then I have BurlyCon. I'm hitting a yoga video when it's a bit cooler in the world; LA's been in summer mode all week.

Excelsior!

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Prison Showers From Camp in 2007

I was a Girl Scout and we had showers at camp but I never took one.  I preferred being smelly to risking cold water and an abundance of spiders.  Here's a little more from my burlesque camp experience in 2007.  (I didn't post the naked photos of several of us in the shower at once out of respect for the other people in the photos.  Not all of them are used to being naked on the internet.)



Camp Showers

When I was a Girl Scout, we never used the showers at camp because they were just plain scary. When we'd walk past them, someone who had never been to camp before but knew someone who had would tell stories about the horrible poisonous spiders that infested the cold water only showers. I never verified any of this because it sounded too horrible. The showers may have been spider-free and had plenty of hot water.

At this camp, I had to shower. I spent my Thursday in airplanes and airports and I really needed to be clean. We were staying on someone's private property, so I had no idea what the showers would be like. For all I knew, they were sheets of plastic surrounding a suspended garden hose.

Alas, I was wrong. The showers were in an outdoor almost room on a hardwood deck. There was plenty of hot water because there was a small hot water heater nearby. There was a giant tub sink and two mirrors for grooming just outside of the shower. Plastic stair steps for sitting or leaning and shaving, metal soap holders and a detachable shower head made up these luxurious outdoor showers. What was really great was that there was so much shrubbery between this property and the next that there was no problem grooming on the deck and wandering back to one's accommodations in a state of partial (or complete) undress.

The Letter Follies- September Edition

Stargarden

6630 Lankershim Boulevard

North Hollywood, California

Cover - $5
Shows at 9:30 and 10:30

This month we feature the lovely performance arts of...

Red Snapper
Vestal Vixen
Dahlia De Lust
Miss Angie Cakes
Scarlett Letter

accompanied by the lovely dancers of Star Garden.

Dork Face From Camp in 2007

More of my camp experience.  I like to think that all of the education I did before my debut paid off, even if I sounded like a giddy school girl when I was studying.



Back to Day Two

The afternoon of the second day of camp was warm enough for me to take a shower. I still wasn't acclimated to Washington weather when I left. Mornings were too darn cold for anything less than long pants and a sweater, and our shower pavilion was outside.

After I was nice and clean, I put on my pasties and some frilly knickers. Other girls started putting on pasties, and then it was the perfect time for tassel twirling class. I'd learned a little about tassel twirling from Miss Indigo Blue's lesson on Princess Farhana's burlesque DVD. This was a thorough hatting on twirling. I learned how to make them go one direction, how to spin from inside to outside, from outside to inside, and even how to make one spin at a time. It was awesome!

To those of you potential twirlers out there, this will build up your shoulder muscles. The trick is to not look down while you're twirling or you'll get a double chin, kind of like I did while I was trying to angle the camera for a photo. You can see my black tassel going in the photo.

"I'm taking a break."

There are two kinds of breaks:

1. The kind of break after a great deal of activity or stress, like being such an active participant in something that you feel like you're sacrificing quality for quantity.  There's also the break when life has other plans, someone gets sick, a loved one dies, you get an injury, you're busy with work or school.  There really is something that's requiring your time and attention more than the other activity in which you were participating.
2. The kind where you can't find a polite way to tell a group or activity that it's no longer supplying you with the kind of stimulation or attention you need.  The thing that drew you into the group or thing is no longer worth the hassle.

Of the two kinds of breaks, the second is the one where people try to talk you back into the group or activity if you tell them the real reason you're leaving.  "C'mon, it's just a transition time."  "We're working through a rough spot."  "It's a team building year."  It's easier to quietly "take a break," pack up your ball and go play elsewhere.  Seth Godin has a nice and short article about this kind of departure here.

How do you leave an area and tell them you're unfulfilled?  I don't have the answer.  I've pissed off plenty of people with my honesty in my day, and I'm sure I'll piss off plenty more.  I've tried the "taking a break" in the past and I always feel like I should've just been honest in those situations, even if I did piss someone off.

I may be a genius, but I sure as hell don't have all the answers on this topic.  Any suggestions?

Note: I'm not "taking a break" right now.

Dance Class Challenge: 50/100 - 10 Minute Solution: Pilates

Halfway there and only four months left this year. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit! BurlyCon is going to be my chance to catch up.

With the split toenail, I'm treating my dancing feet gently. I needed a workout that was easy on the feet but engaged the rest of the body. This video (on Netflix Instant) has five parts: abs, arms, buns & thighs, power burn and flexibility. The workouts were so engaging I didn't realize ten minutes had passed with each one. The arm workout was particularly noteworthy; I did the video on Wednesday and I can still feel the work I did in my pecs. I highly recommend this one.

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