To whom it may concern:
Please excuse Al for a lack of updates on this blog. He’s been off learning how to dance. And attending many fundraising meetings. Then there’s been the school stuff, he’s been wrestling with an arduino of all things for weeks now, his social life has become so much the busier and much to the chagrin of his body, he’s been exercising more. A lot more.
In fact short of moving house while still working a full time job, I feel this is the busiest he’s been from day to day in a very long time.
And interestingly/strangely, it looks like he might actually be enjoying it..
A day in the life previously
-Wake up to the alarms (3)
-Go to work. Talk, drink coffee, occasionally remember to eat breakfast.
-Plan the next day
-Go home, cook lunch.
-Fallout 4
-Pick up kids from school
-More Fallout 4
-Cook dinner
-Time for a little more Fallout 4 or a series episode on Amazon Prime or Netflix.
-Sleep, repeat.
A day in the life currently
-Wake up to the alarms (3)
-Go to work. Talk, drink coffee, occasionally remember to eat breakfast.
-Plan the next day
-One on one dance training or a fundraising meeting or time in the workshop gym or shopping or hunting around for something, more than likely something involving the dance routine or the fundraising.
-Lunch
-More shed time ranging from the bike to the bench press to busting out a couple of moves to working with wires, crimps and other tiny electrical goods on the workshop bench.
-Pick up the kids from school
-More time in the shed, walking the dogs, exercise if it didn’t occur earlier, if tired nap on the spikes for a couple of hours, set up Supercoach team later if later in the week, plan the weekend, school stuff like parent teacher interviews, catch up on what I need to
-Cook dinner or occasionally get taken out for dinner by various family member
-Depending on the day/event: Group dance training, outside work, P+C meeting, social gathering, episode of Reacher, planning, watering the garden, possibly a school thing, updating my diary etc
-Sleep, brace myself for the next day.
Honestly I’m finding it amazing how everything has suddenly become a whole lot busier across the board ever since I said ‘Dancing challenge? Sure I’ll sign up, how hard could this be?’
It started off once a week but then..
So a long time ago when I was going through a weekly strength training session, my trainer at the time suggested making it more than just once a week – which given how banged up I felt after just one session, I flat out refused to do. But he kept asking, the other guys at the gym kept the peer pressure up and eventually I caved – returning two days later barely able to walk (squats grr!) but willing to give the twice a week workouts a try, at least once.
Surprisingly it didn’t hurt…that much. Sure it still kicked the crap out of me and I felt horrendous for the next couple of days but I bounced back just the same. And after that initial week, the usual one became the usual two.
So while the group dance training has only been once a week so far, I’m pleased with myself for willingly agring to do far more sessions of one on one dance training with my Hip Hop teacher Abbey across seven days. Although I was a bit shocked when she mentioned we’d managed to fit in three in the space of a week.
Three in a week of doing anything? Me??
But unlike my old Mazda rotary, there’s a lot of parts in this dance machine, sorry dance machine. There’s plenty of sliding, kicks and hand movements in the air while it seems I just don’t care. Not to mention one part where I thought ‘Pfft, this will be easy!’ only for my body to respond with ‘Good god Al, WTF are you trying to do to us here?’
Normally I have no problems lifting a little over my own weight off the ground (and Abbey is certainly a lot lighter than I am!) but I’m not in a dead lifting position here, I’m in one my body is completely not used to at all and it’s taking some time to get the hang of getting her over and into the next position in the dance.
So the more practise the better, hence the up to three times a week so far. Because there’s quite a bit to go in our routine including finding outfits and a certain prop that doesn’t seem to exist in this town.. but it’s been exhausting fun so far!
What I didn’t realise when signing up was that this dance challenge seems to be a magnet for a busy life complete with challenge related and unrelated adventures. Including:
I probably should have read the code first you know..
To help with the challenge of fundraising (my target is $5000 and at the time of writing I’m just over 20% there..) I’ve got a couple of events coming up, one with the genius idea of having a game show night with me as host and clever buzzers to buzz in with.
It was genius right up until the point where I discovered my ability with small scale electronics was not as good as I thought it was cracked up to be. Which led to weeks of frustration and yelling at a bunch of inanimate wires until I slowed down and figured out where I was going wrong..
Suddenly a friendly doggo appeared!
‘Could you look after my dog while my house goes up for auction?’ -Mum
Next thing you know, Uncle Bill drops around this house’s self appointed bacon inspector.
As well as being a beautiful natured Border Collie, Mac spent a week influencing our own Border Collie Willow who now expects dinner at Mac Time (4pm as opposed to 6pm) and a regular walk as soon as I get home regardless of how tired I might be with current events. Hilariously he also spent the week attempting to wrestling with the spray from the hose, trying to fight the vacuum cleaner, going everywhere I didn’t want him to go at the local oval and terrorizing the cat which was completely unfamiliar territory for him.
He returned home to mum earlier today and already we miss his charming ways (even with his knack of suddenly appearing by your side when slicing up meet for dinner..)
Going fast, going nowhere
‘You need stamina to dance, stamina is not something I have.’ – Me to myself, the day after the first group training session.
Not I didn’t blow up like a over pressurised steam engine like I figured I would (amazingly I managed to leave my asthma at home that night..) but I was still puffed out pretty quick, hence resurrecting my $10 speed trainer for the bike and finally putting it to some good use:
Unsurprisingly to anyone who actually owns a bike, the more I pedal, the better I get and the longer I can last before the legs go ‘Welp, no more burning please!’. Although it’s not just the bike, there’s plenty of bench related action including the leg extension/leg curl additions too. If I’m going to increase my fitness this year, it may as well be both on off the dance floor!
(Although my genius idea of doing more squats to strengthen the trick part of my routine didn’t go so well – I haven’t done squats in so long, even a light session had me walking at a snails pace for the next couple of days..)
And then there’s the fundraising hurdles!
Okay, it’s not all busy success stories at the moment. And look I’m not going to dob anyone in here or draw the curtain back too far on this point but I will admit it’s a little frustrating when people offer to help and are nowhere to be seen when the help they promised is needed. Or the delays you encounter because someone forgot something or didn’t deem it important. I’ve encountered both in my fundraising planning and I’ve had to send out a tonne of reminders which naturally drags things back a bit and while it’s tempting to continue to rant and rave about it, I feel that energy is much better spent on the things I can control.
(Although I now can sympathise with anyone else who’s tried to do good and found themselves climbing a wall of frustration instead.)
In saying that, I’ve also met people who couldn’t wait to help (including my lovely wife) and who want to make my events succeed as much as possible. The people who ask for nothing, who are just content in helping out a cause. They’re the people who rock and I’m hoping to meet quite a few more of them before this challenge journey’s end.
Interestingly I’m also learning this month how to source free food for a charity breakfast. Given the price of eggs currenly, asking for free ones for a bacon and egg roll breakfast for the school might be a bit of a challenge but it is for a good cause after all..
To wrap things up, I won’t lie.
I’m beyond tired most days, verging on exhausted. Be it from dance practice or exercise or work stuff or weekend work or social stuff (a lot of people are very curious how I’m going here), fundraising meetings or working on stuff for my big nights. Sometimes it’s a bit taxing on my asthma. And then there are those nights where as worn out as I feel, my mind is still racing at a million miles an hour trying to remember the next step in the routine or what I had planned for the next day, preventing me from getting a good nights sleep.
But crazily as much work as involved here? I’m actually enjoying things. It’s the most exercise I’ve done in forever and already I’m feeling marginally fitter, I’ve had more social outings in the last month than I have in the last six, I’ve met a tonne of new people which I’ve wanted to do but didn’t really know how, the days are over just as quickly as they started and dance practise is something I really look forward to as apposed to dreading stepping onto the floor and possibly falling onto my face because I’m seeing an improvement each week.
So please continue to excuse me from this blog because I’ve still got 49 days until my big public performance and a lot more dance work/fundraising to catch up on before then!
Wish me luck!
