Thoughts

Always room for improvement!

During the holidays, I am no different than everyone else in this country! I REALLY enjoy holiday cookies, foods, snacks galore. The fact that we can wear heavy winter gear to hide our glutinous ways doesn’t help. Added with the days upon days of sitting at my desk and at my keyboard/studio – I would sometimes not leave the house. The winter in NYC made it very easy to justify staying indoors because of all the terrible weather we’ve been having. Honestly, I only ever really left the house to go to France it feels. Otherwise I rarely need to leave Manhattan. I have not gone on vacation since I’ve started writing Christmas music. In fact the other day, my producer was talking about his vacations and I gave him a sour face. My mother called me last night that she decided she wanted to go to the Bahamas again this weekend after JUST coming back. UGH!

To be the kind of artist and composer I want to be – everyday is a fight. There are no vacations.  It’s a true battle of the mind and spirit to keep focused and keep going. Being an entrepreneur throughout my life has taught me ways to set up systems to keep focused. I had always been very focused in the mind, but felt I was feeling a little dull. Perhaps, admittedly, a bit of burnout. My biggest seasons are at the end of the year, during Christmas – and since January, I have been full steam ahead.

Many of my friends told me that I should try and take up Yoga. Except, I don’t really see myself as the Yogi Namaste type. Yogi Bear maybe … Hey Boo Boo! Namaste? Nah. The suggestions were valid in the sense that it could benefit me both physically and as a meditation. My life can be rather stressful!

Maybe coming back from France was the last straw as my weeklong escape to the land of french bread and cheese, made me want to grab some more in the US. Et Voila, I started to stalk French bakeries and I finally put the baguette down when I realized this was not helping me feel better about myself.

My normal mode of fitness has been primarily Soul Cycle. In fact, I’ve been a pretty devout Soul Cyclist for years.  I generally enjoy the workout except, the volume of music at Soul Cycle is something very difficult for me to deal with as a musician. All I have are my ears and I have to protect them. After a while I started feeling like a hamster in an overpriced hamster wheel. My body was becoming trained to be best fit on a bike, which doesn’t really work for me as a performer. Competition is healthy, but the competitive nature of the workout, having to fight for empty bikes and fight for lockers and compete for everything was getting a little played out mentally. It just felt like work. My biggest mantra is if you sit by an inkwell you’ll get dirty – and I started to like the people around me at the studio less and less.

Many many many moons ago, I used to be a classically trained dancer. Up until my early teens – I dedicated every weekend and summer to training. Classical ballet, tap and jazz. So I started to gravitate towards the idea of Barre Classes. My career is based on my childhood love for music and I still romanticize my ballet training as if I weren’t the clumsiest gawkiest person at the barre – or any good at ballet! I sucked! I stuck with it until the end but I sucked!

I did A LOT of research and decided to visit all the various barre classes in NYC. All of them are similar – but one stood out to me in the way they introduced the studio to me and invited me in. Other studios carried this air about them that I should already know what they are about, and were less amenable. I also found that this studio that stood out felt like an escape. Almost spa like. Without the requisite poking and prodding of your skin.

As many of you know – Elizabeth Chan is an all-in kind of person. If I’ve researched and thought enough about something, and have a good gut instinct about something – I’ll go for it. All in. This is what I’ve done for the past month. I’ve summoned what little dancing ability I had, which is mostly imagination, and what I was about to find out, what little strength I had and started taking barre classes.

This class seemed poised and neatly uniform. I stuck out like a sore thumb in this particular class. The fact I was wearing the wrong clothing aside, during the first 15 minutes of the workout at the barre – I started to feel really woozy. Before I knew it, I was lying on the floor and propping my legs up and someone was running from outside to bring me some water. I was so embarrassed. I got up and finished the class. During the push up portion, the room must have done maybe 50 pushups and I could only complete 2 or 3.

After class, a girl that was sitting next to me said that what happened to me is kind of normal and that I should stick with it. That I could do it, and she’s been at it for over a year and loves it! I don’t know why I decided to believe this girl – but I did. Also, despite being knocked out on my butt during the class – instead of snide looks, I felt this wave of support from the women around me. Helping me out to figure out how to do the movement. Not to mention, everyone looked amazing. Like super healthy beautiful versions of themselves. These are a group of women I’d rather be like!

Also, I know a thing or two about failure. It’s not about falling, it’s about how you get back up. Even though I probably might have almost killed myself in that first class – I signed up for a month of classes. I was back and at it the next day.

Everyday, all I aimed to do was one more push up. My pure focus daily is just to improve my push ups. These barre classes have also helped me to – for an hour – forget about my Christmas journey and work and remember me from within. Nothing matters to me in that hour except to do one more push up, or to improve my posture today, or to try and fight my shakes and not give up.

Despite the polar vortex, not having the right shoes, sub zero temperatures and inclement weather – I was more regular than the postman – delivering myself to the barre. Everyday I go to just see if I could do one more push up.

Today is the FIRST day in my LIFE, that I’ve done 50 push ups! I was at my 40th pushup when my teacher called out “You can do it Elizabeth!” Cause apparently my lack of pushup ability has been obvious this past month.

When I finished that 50th pushup I was the happiest person ever. Almost as good as sitting on a tropical beach drinking a pina colada. Almost.