#modernswing

Since there are less travels in this season of life, I decided to add an important piece to the title.  Well, you’d have to have been following me in details for years to notice and care about a difference, which I think makes two of you, but!  Details are important. (and punctuating your texts however the hell you want to.)  You’re welcome.

I left you last time with my move into my super handsome, awesome boyfriend’s place.  Well, it’s still awesome.  I foresee a lifetime of happiness for me.  Finally.  I told him he was stuck with me unless he left.  Lucky man.  Anyway, I had a gig planned in Spokane.  What an interesting place!  I can most definitely say that it’s not a place I particularly knew of or that I had on my list of places to visit, but I had a blast.  As always, how can you not when you travel to do the thing you love, meeting people who have the same passion and are so eager to welcome you in their community?  My best friend Kim drove down from British-Colombia, Canada to meet me two days early so we could spend some time.  I was so happy to see her, yet, something was off.  We both left a bit disappointed.  I was wondering if it was possible to have grown apart after being friends for more than half your life???  It was pretty harsh.  Kim wrote me a month after to clear the air and I’m happy she did: I didn’t know she felt the same… I think I was just so exhausted from a summer running around trying to make up for lost time after my surgery, that I didn’t have any empathic bone left in my body and was so on edge that nobody could get to me and connect.  Now that I think about it, I had seen a great longtime friend of mine during the summer and it was the same kind of off vibe: you know when you’re the common denominator… 

After she left, I started teaching privates and workshops to the westies of Spokane.  It is a small, welcoming and warm community.  We had one dance and the next night we went to the last opened night of a gastropub owned by one of the dancer.  I was served a delicious vegan meal prepared specially for me; it was delicious!  I had the chance to explore town and Pig in the park with food and music and it was the 50th anniversary of Expo74.  What a treat.  The last night, we were invited to Arbor Crest winery.  It is a beautiful winery located on a hill, overlooking the city.  We had the chance to see a concert, drink delicious wine and have a private tour of the property.  I couldn’t imagine a better ending to a weekend!

The weekend after, I had kept free to be able to be at one of my boyfriend’s best friend’s marriage.  Wow.  That was hard to write.  Alex had a beautiful group of about ten guy friends that have known each other since high school, Cegep or their early twenties and they managed to see each other every other week, plan chalets, do birthdays and be there for important step stones.  I wish I had that… but I understand I left and travelled and picked another life that didn’t allow for that type of connections and habits to be built.  I think mostly habits.  When I came back to Montreal, it wasn’t because I wanted to be there, it was because I was ready to step in a new part of my life where relationships are more important than work.  I was hoping to maybe find a love relationship, but certainly to work on friendships, family connections, and community.  Well, turns out most everybody that asked me to come back throughout the years and that were missing me are too busy to see me.  It makes sense: the way we have constructed life in North America is non-stop busyness.  So, you run around to work, trying to take care of your family, hoping you have time for a couple workouts and, who knows, a hobby, and by the end of the week, you’re exhausted and you need a break, which you only get if you’re lucky.  You try to maintain a couple friendships with people who have been there for you through the years, and… I’m not part of that, I was gone.  That includes my family.  Do I regret coming back?  Not yet. ;-)  I understand that the relationships I thought would be are not it and that I have to focus on new ones; I found my partner; I’m there for my family through news of cancer, other disease, accidents, financial hurdle (it’s been quite a year since I’m back);I have a couple of friends I hang out with that I love; and I’m putting efforts towards the community.  I believe I get what I deserve and for now that means I need to put effort in showing the traits of characters that people didn’t know me to have before: being a community person, working on interdependence, teamwork, reliability, and much more.  I hope after almost two years as I wrote this letter, people are starting to see it.

All that to say that I went to a wedding!  Lol  I called it the first “real” wedding I went to a few times, and one of my friend asked me: “What is a real wedding?”, to which I enumerated a few qualities.  My boyfriend then said: “But you went to yours.”  Ouch.  Ok. Lollll  Point taken.  Anyways, it was a beautiful wedding, in a cozy venue.  It poured down, but everybody played well.  They brought the ceremony inside, the vows were beautiful, the cocktails were on point, they had really cool games, and most importantly: PEOPLE DANCED!  How lucky am I/are we (if you are in the same situation, which I assume if you are reading this) to have friends that dance?  I would be so sad if all my activities were sitting and consuming things.  I love the fact that my friends will dance, sing, scream stupidity, come to a burlesque show with me, throw axes, do karaoke, and EXPERIENCE life!  Honestly, that’s what makes it worth it for me (and I’m realizing it as I write it).  I don’t want to watch life pass me by like an old person sitting on a porch, watching people walk by like the never ending flow of a river you never step foot in; I want to live it!  I want to jump in the river and make a fool of myself, get messy, meet other swimmers, and see where it takes us.  Who knew retelling a wedding would make me poetic like this?

Months before this, a woman wrote me to have a private lesson at an event.  Great!  Have you danced before?  You’re from out of town?  I have danced before, never wcs, and I live in Yellowknife!  It was a really nice encounter, we had a beautiful lesson and we parted ways.  She contacted me again as she was passing by Montreal to have a lesson.  We had a good time, she left, and she asked me if I wanted to come teach lessons in Yellowknife.  Absolutely!  Wow, there is wcs in Yellowknife???  No… but there will be.  So a couple of things before we keep going.  First, if you don’t know where YK is, it’s wayyyy north in Canada… which is already north.  Second, if you don’t know me, I don’t like the cold.  I didn’t want to come back to Canada mainly for this: I don’t want to go through winters again (last one was pretty tame I must say).  I like warm weather, sun on my skin, heat.  So I would never think of going north for a vacation.  When I heard that people were paying more than 2000$ to go north in the off chance that they’d see a northern light… I couldn’t relate less.  Nonetheless, I will always say yes to being invited somewhere new, to teach and explore.  I landed in a beautiful, sunny YK, and I had to go take a nap.  My body was still recuperating apparently.  I woke up to go eat fish at the most known local place: Bullock’s.  It looks like a shack from the outside… and well, honestly from the inside too.  They have fish with fries and salad or fish with fries and salad or fish with fries and salad… well, you get the gist.  I normally don’t eat fish: I’m mostly vegan, but when in Rome…  It was delicious and a great experience.  I saw the harbor and went to bed, absolutely forgetting to put an alarm through the night to see northern lights because I was so tired and I wanted to be at my best for teaching!  The next day, I had privates and workshops all day, followed by a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant and a dance with the courageous people who had just learned wcs for hours on the same day and decided to show up and boogie!  I just love that energy!  I went back home thinking I would put an alarm and decided to see some lights, the forecast was good.  Right before I went to bed, the organizer wrote me and said: “Go outside, there is a show.”  And a show it was!  Wow!  I can’t explain the feeling.  I knew auroras moved, but not like that: they actually dance!  I had seen the faintest of one in Island for my birthday a few years back, and they had told me that wasn’t it, but I was still impressed, not knowing what it could me.  Now that?  That was… magical.  2000$ to see that???  Yes.  Absolutely.  I get it now.  And that was just from my balcony downtown, imagine from the forest with no city lights at all!  The next day was filled with privates with amazing people.  The organizer had told me she was going to set up privates for me, but I had thought: with who?  Everybody is new, they just have done a four hours intensive the day before, their brains are going to be full.  Apparently people are as passionate up there as anywhere else, or they are bored cause there is nothing else to do… to be confirmed.  I might be mixing the days, but that night, we went to two of the dancers place and they had cooked probably the most delicious vegan lasagna I have ever had, garlic bread, we had brought delicious ice cream from a local shop, good wine.  It was a blast.  The organizer had asked me if homemade food was ok for the weekend or if I preferred restaurant.  Are you kidding?  I feel so taken care of and honored when people cook for me: homemade food anytime (except maybe if the person cooks like me then restaurant might be better).

I had one day left to explore and best believe I made the most of it!  I started with a walk through town (downtown is a big word for this place really) to go get a warm local coffee.  I then went to the Prince of Wales museum, which has a free entrance, and tells you the history of the North West Territories (Canada has provinces and territories like USA has states).  I walked the long walkway around one of the lake through town, went through old town, climbed the tiny hill to get a view of the harbor, and the organizer came to pick me up for a hike.  I have to admit I was expecting a strenuous hike and was mentally prepared for it: it was anything but arduous, but extremely beautiful.  A walk through the woods, giant rocks (I love rocks), a view of Cameron’s falls, crossing the river on a bridge, laying on rocks with the sound of the water while eating chocolate.  Perfect.  We came back for me to have a massage I scheduled with the boyfriend of one of the girl who was visiting from Quebec!  It was delicious.  We ate pizza and then… I had mentioned that I loved exploring and that if something comes up, I’ll do it, but that I was extremely scared of water especially at night and not really at ease in general with the outdoors, something I want and am working on.  For example, going on a big hike, in the middle of nowhere, by myself is more stress inducing than soothing.  So we went kayaking, at night, on the main lake where people have boat houses.  We paddled to a floating sauna!!!  Built by one of the local.  You get there, park your kayak on the edge of the 2 feet platform, take some wood from the back, start a fire inside the wooden cabin that is so well insulated that after 10m you sweat like a pig, you then jump in the lake to refresh yourself (which I was also afraid of lake sharks as we joked about), and when you come out… you are in the middle of the lake, nobody around, and there is a freaking light show above your head!  The lights came out again for my last night.  One looked like a dome above us.  It was really magical (I know I’ve used that same word earlier to describe the same thing, but that’s what it is.  I guess I could have said majestic also.  The two majestic things I saw in my life were: northern lights and swimming five feet away from a whale and her baby.)  I can say that trip was a success on all fronts.

Being home.  Having a home (I was on the road travelling and living out of my suitcase for years before that) has the advantage that you can have people over.  So I had my second housewarming party in a year (faithful to my habits, I had been in Montreal for a year and a half at that point, but already live in three different houses/apartments/condos).  People from both sides of my family were there, some close friends and it was a blast.  The next day, I threw my boyfriend and the dog out for a girl’s day with a Eros presentation.  It was a lot of fun and although it lasted six hours; it was too short to catch up on everything we needed to tell each other.  I also had the chance to bring my partner to the concert of his favorite artist visiting Montreal: Kygo.  I didn’t know I liked him before and couldn’t see the point in going to see a DJ live, but the show was really well put together, interesting, full of visuals, and great surprises.  I’m putting all the weekends home in a bunch, but between those occasions, and being present for friends and family members birthdays, which I haven’t been in years because I was gone… that’s what makes the decision to come back and stay in one place worth it.  I have been travelling less than I’d like to just for a month as I’m writing this and I’m already feeling it.  So it’s definitely something I have to be careful with moving forward, to make sure I keep that side alive.

Another weekend I had booked off six months in advance to make sure I could show up for it, was a chalet with all the women on one side of my family.  I left earlier on Friday to walk at the Rawdon’s falls area and read my book laying on some boulders (I told you I liked rocks, they are always warm and welcoming… I have a weird relationship with them I guess.  I can’t be the only one, no?).  I got to the chalet early and read some more while waiting for the crew to arrive.  It’s so important to spend time between women, interesting discussions arise that wouldn’t in another context.  We made the meals together, ate great food, talked into the night, sang karaoke until 2am, had a lot of wine, celebrated one of the girl’s birthday, and went for a hike.  It all fell way too short, but still satisfying.

Montreal Westie Fest was next in line.  I hadn’t done an event in a while, the last one was New England Dance Festival at the beginning of August.  I do a lot of weekend workshops lately, they are better financially, but events are better for visibility.  I get sad lately wondering what happened to my career.  I mean, before CoCo, I was travelling all over the world every weekend.  Years ago, in a partnership with Stephen, but for years after that as a solo female professional.  Covid happened and I didn’t have a partner to create with and post on social media, so I created a bunch of offers for solo followers, I trained in pole and aerial to stay fit, I kept teaching online… but when things picked up again, nothing.  And I have to admit, I don’t want to be gone every weekend like I did before, but one or two a month would be perfect with the business I’m building in Montreal also.   But it’s like if somewhere along the line, I’ve lost my value for events.  Even if I know I am a great teacher, when people see and experience my teaching in group lessons, workshops or privates, they hire me for more; that point doesn’t seem to count as valuable for events.  I am not on social media enough to be seen, I don’t have a partner I create and inspire people with, if there is an Invitational division, I will put up a show and generally place, but if it is a Champion division, my name doesn’t make it to the finals, so I don’t get to showcase anything.  I miss having a partner.  I miss creating at my level, inspiring people, getting inspired myself, making a difference in the dance and being part of its evolution.  But maybe that ship has sailed.  Let me know if you’ve read until now if you have ideas for me to add value to the international community (I am doing a lot locally, which is new for me, and working very well).  All that to say, MWF was a blast as always.  I topped my record of privates in an event weekend (18!).  I could have done more, but had to say no, which I hate doing, but I physically couldn’t.  Workshops went great, the dancing was on point, the all-American JnJ was a blast and I definitely went off in the Invitational.  If you know, you know.

I had more occasions of being with friends at home, my friends, Alex’s friends, visiting someone’s new house in Ste-Adèle, going to Christmas Markets with my best friends and seeing an epic Quebecer band live.  I also am the queen of finding free events to attend.  So with a couple friends, we had the chance to see the international final of a Spoken word contest… for free!  My friend’s kid was amazing.  After a few performances, he turned to us and said: “When does it start?”  Ok, the spoken words art wasn’t a success with the kids, but with the adults, yes!  I also got us tickets for the recording of a show, which is basically a live concert with epic Quebecer artist: Valaire, Boom Desjardins, Dubmatique, Laura Malia, Aswell… two hours of great music, some drinks, my friends getting pulled on stage to dance, and we finished the evening at one of my friend’s place where his wife was having a party.  Oh what a night!  I went to a line dance competition in a small town in Quebec and had a taste of the beautiful country dance culture we have around here.  I finally saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show! I organized more guided practice for Montreal westies, I taught group lessons, workshops, intensives and privates in town, and I organized my first Westie Café!  I had been wanting to do that for a year: a Sunday afternoon dance for those who can’t come out at night because of work schedule, kids, and preferences.  We have an hour of class, and two hours of dancing.  I serve coffee, fruits, pastries, people can bring their kids, we talk, we dance and we connect.  It has been a success the first couple times and I hope it continues like that!!

For Halloween, I was in Toronto with one of my favorite person: Nelson Clarke!  Anytime I can, I try to get him with me on contracts or just be around him because I know it’s going to be a great weekend.  The organizer and many people there were also friends, since I live in Toronto for the majority of 2022.  I was teaching an intermediate workshop on Friday by myself.  I got there and there were… about 18 followers and 1 lead?!  The theme of the class was call and answer. Loll  Let me tell you, I had to do a last minute reset so everybody could dance their role, practice and learn something.  Saturday was packed with privates and workshops with Nelson, and we ended on Sunday morning with the advanced dancers.  It was a quick and busy weekend and I was hungry all the time… which brings us to the next part.

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TRIGGER WARNING

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I came back from the weekend and still didn’t have my period (I know, random topic to bring out).  We had done fertility testing with my partner during the year and the results weren’t really bright.  So we organized ourselves, I had to clear my schedule for a few months to be in town, and we had to save money to start IVF.  That was the only possibility in having kids… So Monday morning comes, I am really late, I also know it’s impossible for me to get pregnant, it’s a bit confusing, but I decide to do a pregnancy test despite everything, knowing it would be negative.  Well, it wasn’t.  My partner and I were so confused and also elated.  And I had no clue what to do.  I had spent the last few months researching in every minute of free time, every book, every podcast, every article, I could get my hands or ears on about fertility, in the hopes of understanding the 10 000 medical terms thrown at us, and hoping it helped us to make the best decision possible; but I hadn’t researched anything about what to do when you’re pregnant.  I took another test to be sure, they were both positive in a second, I called some people who told me to get on a waitlist for daycares (the waitlists are years long in Quebec), and for birthing houses if that’s what I wanted to do.  We couldn’t get a hold of any doctor to get any appointments for a follow-up (thank you free healthcare), but we finally had an appointment for December.  I started doing research, thinking of reorganizing the house, making lists of what we’d need, imagining having an argument with my teenage kid in a few years’ time, being happy I wasn’t at The Open, because initially I was supposed to be doing fertility, but now it was even better: I wasn’t there because I had a little chia seed growing in my belly! 

Some of you know, you feel like shit or all sorts of things in the first trimester, but you’re happy to feel like shit because it’s for a greater cause.  A few weeks after that, I started to feel better physically… ok… is that good or terrible?  I am happy to feel better, but worried it means something is off.  You do research, they say it’s normal, you don’t necessarily have symptoms in the first trimester… but I had…  Then, one day, I had some light pink on the toilet paper after going to the bathroom.  They say it’s normal, it can happen.  Online I mean, cause there are still no doctors available to talk to.  So you wait and try to breather and tell yourself not to freak out, that everything is ok.  Two days later, I have bad cramps, I go to the bathroom and there is a lot of blood.  I’m panicking.  It’s the night, no point in sitting in the emergency room and wait for twelve hours (not an exaggeration in Quebec) while I’m bleeding, we’ll call in the morning.  I just had a place in a birthing house.  We get an appointment, they say they can’t see, they’ll send us to the hospital for an ultrasound.  I’m bleeding, they need to draw blood, but nobody can get the vein: fours nurses, one clinic and an hospital, nine missed draw and one successful one.  I see that something is off at the ultrasound, nobody wants to tell me: the doctor will tell you.  Back for another appointment at the clinic: maybe you just did a mistake in the dates.  Yes, but I’m bleeding and cramping and I don’t see a foetus on the ultrasound.  We’ll do more tests.  A week and a half, ten blood draws, nine missed ones, ten clinic and hospital appointments, six ultrasounds, liters of blood, my body not managing to expulse, having to take the pills that create horrendous pain (well, you’re having contractions like if you’re giving birth, except you don’t have the happy outcome to look forward to.  Btw, for those who are against abortions, I wouldn’t have had to be able to have the treatment my body needed if I was in a place were that was illegal).  One more scraping, one more ultrasound, to make sure everything is out, one and a half week or work missed with no income, having to deal with the physical pain, and now it’s time to catch back on all the missed work, so no time to process.  And now I have to watch The Open with a flat belly and not knowing what just happened.  I’m so happy there were three routines I choreographed and coached that made podiums because… it was a rough one.  Now, I don’t know how I feel.  I still haven’t had time to process.  I need a break.  Maybe I’ll get one for the Holidays.

Moral support:

To end this, I want to say that there are always two ways (or more) to view things and to present them.  When I post on social media, I want it to be helpful, informational and/or spread positivity and joy.  Sometimes life is not all that. 

So I could present my year in two ways:

2024: traveling, dancing, meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, being there for my family, meeting the love of my life and moving in, getting pregnant, being part of a community and helping it grow.

2024: removal of a wisdom tooth that went poorly, infection, loss of income, sickness, cancer in the family, financial problem in the family, surgery and another loss of income, no partner for the Open, no dancing at my level, exhaustion, a miscarriage and another loss of income, feeling like I’ve lost my worth in the community.

Neither one is right, neither one is wrong.  We obviously choose what we want to present to the world, but we have to choose how we look at things and encompass everything.  It’s often easier to remember the bad, our brains somehow want to imprint it more than the good, but we also have to take it into account.  No life is perfect, everybody makes life choices and consequences come with it.  There are also seasons of luck and seasons where we are extremely unlucky that have nothing to do with decisions we made (I don’t think anybody deserves to be sick or lose a loved one).  So next time you look at someone’s life on social media and you think that you would like to be in their shoes, remember two things: first, their shoes are also full of shit; second, if there are elements of that person’s life you really want in yours, work to rearrange that part of your life so you have it!

Thank you for everyone who’s been there for me and with me this year.  You know who you are and I love you.

I could write a 6000 words blog post about each day or week of my life, if I did it at the perfect intersection: soon enough to remember everything that happened and further enough from it that I’d have some insights on it.

But as my travels continue, I’m finding that pieces of amazingness are slipping through my fingers and my thoughts.  What I do know, is how grateful I am for the life I have.  I have secluded myself from others and outside noises so much in the last month, by necessity, my body demanded it, and by choice, to have time to reflect, see where I’m at in life and where I want to go.  This is most likely the middle of my life and far from having a crisis, I’m realizing how align most things are.  Not all, but most.  Of course, the one interrogation point that might stay like that forever, is the idea of a family.  It might be jet lag, it might be tiredness, it might be different food choices, it might be so many things, but I think it is peri-menopause.  There is so little we know about it, but from the changes I’m observing in my body, it is the most likely explanation.  So at forty years old, possibly in peri-menopause, feeling so good by myself, not being quite ready to meet someone after my last breakup… what are the odds of me getting in a healthy relationship, knowing the person enough to feel like it would be a good parenting match no matter what happens with the rest, and getting pregnant?  Not high.  Not impossible, but not high.  So the more I think on it, the more I organize my life around that fact and… I love what I’m creating.  So conflicting emotions arise: if I feel so good, would I really want my life to change with a family?  No.  Would I welcome it with open arms if it happened?  Yes.  I feel like the ultimate emotional maturity is being able to hold two completely opposite feelings at the same time: grief and joy, love and heartbreak, anger and softness… but as of now, I am making the best out of where I’m at.

That includes where I left you with the last blog, leaving the Philippines and going to Bali.  You know some places you land at and you automatically know it’s a match for your soul?  Some other, you automatically know it is not, but if you planned a whole trip around it with so much energy and investment, you pretend it’s a fit and plow ahead.  I landed late in Bali and… loved it.  Just a cozy, loving vibe from the start.  The driver who picked me up for the hour and a half drive to Ubud was so calm and everything was so easy.  I got to my hotel and settled in for the night.  The next day I left to start exploring all the amazing coffee shops, boutiques and places to walk.  I wondered around the rice fields on a little trail in the north of the city, did a yoga class, had great food, and when it was time to get back home, it was pouring.  It started pouring for four days.  Non-stop.  Everywhere they’ll tell you that rainy season is not that bad, that it rains an hour a day and then it’s over.  Well, not that time.  At some point, I started to wonder if the island could take anymore or if we were going to sink.  Kidding I know it doesn’t work that way, but seriously was wondering if we were going to get flooded.  We did… but just in the south, they were evacuating tourists on boat.  I was safe in Ubud and for the first three days, I loved it.  I was just walking to cafés, enjoying the slow pace, but on the fourth day, I was over being utterly soaked at every moment of my life.  And it stopped.  Perfect timing. 

For my birthday, I gave myself two gifts (well, let’s say three if we count this amazing trip I am on).  First, I found this spa package that was ridiculously cheap.  I think in Canadian dollars, it ended up being 130$?  I got to the spa, they gave me fresh juice and let me chose the products and smells I wanted them to use on me for the day.  Well, they actually let me split the package over two days so I could really enjoy everything as I wished.  The first day, I had a facial treatment and a hair spa.  Omg.  The joy of having someone take care of your hair: when does that ever happen in North America?  Ok, you go for a haircut, maybe they give you a two minute massage while they wash your hair, but that’s about it.  Here, they wash it, massage it, condition it, massage it again, massage your scalp and your neck and your arms, put a mask on it, let it dry, bring you more juice, massage you again… it was extraordinary and the first time my hair didn’t look like a sack of hay since I left for this trip a month ago between the heat, the salt water, the sand, the sweat and the low quality hair product I had access to.  To send you off, they bring you ginger tea and a plate of fruit.  You think this is good?  Wait for the second day.  They welcome me with a glass of fresh juice again, then bring me to a seat to wash my feet in a flower filled water basin.  The hour and a half massage was first.  Perfect pressure, perfect everything.  Then the body scrub and body mask.  Finally, they prepare a flower bath.  I had told them it was my birthday… I get in the room to see a beautiful flower-made Happy Birthday written in the bath.  They served me tea and fruits and I got to enjoy this amazing set up for half an hour.  When I was done, they brought me to the terrace to enjoy a delicious traditional Balinese meal with refreshment.  When I was done, two of the women came out with a cake with a candle to wish me a happy birthday.  I tried not to cry too much.  Because it was an amazing experience, and because I was alone on my 40th birthday and realized they were the first and only ones to wish it to me in person.  I was particularly grateful.  The second part of my gift, was a beautifullllll dress I saw in the window of a shop.  I normally don’t buy much (I prefer experiences), but this was too good to pass.  It is really similar in cut to the red dress that got me so many great experiences in the last five years, but this is an upgrade in style: real silk with Balinese flower pressing and the scarf to go with it.  I can’t wait to wear it and feel classy!!!

I got the privilege to give a private lesson to the west coast swing teachers who are developing the scene in Bali.  Two amazing people.  Let’s see if we are lucky enough, it develops and bit, and… who knows what we can create over there?  Anybody interested in partnering up? J  I went to try a delicious restaurant with them and was grateful for the connection.  I tried more yoga places, wine bars and I found an aerial studio.  Well, really it’s a castle.  A beautiful outdoor rigged majestic space.  I was so in need of training after the catastrophic week in the Philippines.  I got to do a duet on a kind of looped strap (not sure if it has a specific name) with the machine pulling us up and down, both of which I had never done before.  Then Mathia arrived.  I had met this girl for five minutes in a room party at TAP, somehow mentioned my trip, and she said she’d like to join.  I said sure.  So many people say that, so sure.  She asked me for my Instagram.  Two weeks later, she asked me for my itinerary.  Two weeks later, she asked me if those flights looked good.  Oh.  Wait, you’re really coming?  Ahaha, amazing!!!  Since then, we had done a one hour call to figure out where we were going to stay and that’s about how much interaction we had had, so I was curious to see how the trip was going to go.  It went… perfectly! 

She got to the Airbnb in the middle of the night, I was sleeping and left the door unlocked.  We woke up, had breakfast there and went training together.  We explored so many great restaurants, went for more massages, shopped (although one of us likes shopping way more than the other – hint, it’s not me -), drank some wine, tasted delicious coffee, and so much more.  But more than that, we had some incredible adventures.  One of my favorite is a day trip to Tanah Lot.  We started in the morning with a stop at Ulun Danu Temple.  Did we see anything on the drive with the amount of fog there was?  No.  Did we see the lake the temple was built on?  Also no.  But it was a unique experience to witness it in that state: how many people get that view (or lack thereof)?  Then we drove to Jatiluwih rice terrace, a Unesco site.  If I have learned one thing so far, is that you cannot be disappointed with anything that is included in the Unesco Heritage.  I could have stayed there all day, which we almost did because I was too excited and ran ahead of my friend and we lost each other… for two hours.  Loll.  Thank god for her patience, and for my infinite enjoyment of walking in those fields.  I had a coconut and plantain chips, we reconvened and left for the last stop of the day.  We had dinner on the way with a view on more rice field and finally made it to Tanah Lot, which was the initial goal of the trip.  I had seen it in a coffee table book at the massage place and just fell in love.  We walked around, took pictures and almost had a sunset through the clouds… almost.  We left before the next downpour and asked our driver to leave us at a Latin social dance in town where I saw my Westie friends for the last time. 

Another fun night was when we decided to go see The Secret Comedy Show.  It’s in a tiny room that can hold twenty spectators almost sitting on top of each other.  Was it the best show I’ve ever seen?  No.  But the guy was good, created lots of public interaction and made us feel like a family for a couple of hours.  Both Mathia and I won the two drawing: a tot bag in exchange for a dance.  Perfect candidates.  But the magic really started after.  I was hungry and wanted to check their restaurant.  We entered this strange spaceship looking elevator, found the restaurant, but there was nothing interesting.  So we started walking towards the exit on a fancy ramp when I saw someone enter a mirror and lots of noise coming out of it.  The entire hotel architecture was unique, but that?  We get to the mirror and we see a tiny place to push, and then… magic!  A hidden speakeasy karaoke that is so narrow, it’s almost dizzying and it looks like its part of a boat.  We stay for a bit, Mathia sings and when we are about to leave, we come across a nice woman, start chatting, get a round of delicious shooters paid by one of the staff member, and finally make our way to a nice dinner.  Thank you Mathia for making that part of the trip (aka my birthday week) feel amazing.  Thank you for the discussions, the help with work, and everything else you gave me without asking for anything in return.  Perfect week.

The morning I left, I felt sad.  I also felt like it was a mistake, that I shouldn’t go to Ko Pha Ngan and that I should stay in Bali.  I think my feeling was right.  Not that I didn’t end up loving my stay in Thailand (especially in retrospect… less during), but Bali has my heart.  So cheesy, so many people say it, so many people feel that way, and that’s why I’m wondering if Bali is going to put a limit on the amount of people who can stay there: it’s getting so overcrowded.  I was lucky, I was there during low season, and for me, it was the perfect amount of people (and traffic), but high season… I can’t even imagine.  I flew to Singapore and then to Koh Samui.  I had to rush to find a taxi to get to the ferry, which the taxi people felt and took advantage of that fact to scam me, managed to get on the ferry (which was beautiful), then got showed in three different taxis before I could finally get to the hotel.  People were rude all along the way and I was really trying to check my attitude and my vibes to know if I was the one creating that, but I really don’t think so.  I got to my room in the dark, met my roommate for the month (or so we thought) and went to bed.  The room wasn’t the one I paid for, the hotel staff was unhelpful, and a lot of other things I will skip that made the first ten days really intense, but as soon as I could relax and finally let go of expectations… everything went better and better each day.  I called the island the Non-sense Island: you don’t get what you want, but you definitely get what you need.  Anything you try to plan for will go sideways.  And I am not saying it only from my perspective, you could see it and hear it from every single person who got there.  We all needed at least a week to adjust.  And by adjust I mean let go of everything you thought this was gonna be and let the island do its thing.  Once you got with the program, it was smooth.  Apparently the program for me was doing nothing.  Well, the most nothing I’ve done in years.  Which for me involves training in zouk for four to six hours a day, work four hours a day, and enjoy the free time.  I didn’t go to half the socials, I missed some classes, I didn’t rent a scooter, I didn’t do excursions; I slept, I read for hours, I reflected, I wrote, I enjoyed the beach, I ate, I trained a bit, I talked with people, I tried a couple restaurants and a couple coffee shops and that was it.  For a month.  I ended up getting the room I paid for ten days in (which is a big part of why I could finally relax and rest), my roommate and I separated with so much love for each other and I started breathing.  The sunsets were a show every evening and the main project of my day, whatever non-plan I had for this particular 24h was organized around the fact that I was going to watch the sunset no matter what. 

The reason I went there in the first place was to train for zouk.  When I was planning my trip, I was looking for an itinerary that made sense, flights I could buy with points, but most of all, purpose.  I have travelled so much by myself, so it’s not that I can’t do it or that I’m scared, I’m just tired of not sharing memories with anybody.  Retelling a vacation is not the same as looking at the person who lived it with you and through their eyes remembering everything.  So my first desire was to be with people somehow.  Then I know I like traveling, but again, to what end?  So I thought on what else I like doing: training.  The first part of my trip was The Maldives for a pole retreat (people and training), the second part was the Philippines in a small group tour (people), the third part was in Bali with a new friend (people and the possibility to train there), and the fourth part was going to be for one month of Brazilian zouk training (people and training).   Perfect.  Honestly, that was an expensive part of the trip.  The island is 40% (or more) more expensive than the rest of the country, places to stay are costly, restaurant options in the area are expensive, the scooter and transportation mafia make going anywhere expensive, the month of training was expensive… so I had really high hope.  That was supposed to be the highlight of the trip.  Me, the dancer who is always teaching, every evening and every weekend, which makes it complicated to take any type of classes, finally giving myself the gift of training.  Just for me.  But I’ve learned an important lesson… so I thought, but I seem to keep making the same mistake even after.  I always underestimate myself.  I want to be humble, I value that as a quality, I don’t like arrogant people and I don’t want to be a prick and sound like I think I know everything.  So when I hear of a month of zouk training, with a one year of zouk general entry level to access most of the classes, I think to myself: this is perfect for me!  I have done zouk approximately five times through the last ten years at crossover events I was hired for or going to one zouk weekend in Canada, surely this is what I need.  I need/want to learn the basic mechanics of zouk, the essence of the dance, leave with a good intellectual and bodily understanding of the dance.  I did not.  Don’t get me wrong, there were good teachers, classes well structured, interesting drills to do… but most of what we did let’s say in the first thirty hour week of training, I could have done in a one hour private lesson.  Even writing this I feel bad, I feel like I’m bragging.  I need to deconstruct this thought pattern in my brain.  And I tried.  I tried to be the best student I could, watching everything, listening carefully, digging for gold nuggets throughout, and I found some, but not enough to justify the investment of time, money and energy. 

The second week was worse.  Everything that was taught were things I have been teaching for years, and again, I am trying not to be pretentious and listen to the way things are said, see what I could bring into my teaching, get inspired… but yeah.  The third week was interesting for me.  Not the best pedagogue, so you have to be able to watch and reproduce, but because they were going fast and doing a lot of zouk coded movements (mostly head movements), I could learn a lot.  The fourth week was the close embrace intensive and even though it was a really slow pace, I enjoyed just letting go, getting closer to people, connecting, hugging, and the teacher is a marvelous pedagogue so I also loved just digging for gold in what was said.  The last piece was the advanced week, which I was really excited for… the first day was a rehashing of what we did with those teachers in the first week (with more details and faster) and then one foot spin drills and counterbalance… we have so much of these in wcs, I didn’t learn anything new.  The second day was the best learning day of the month for me.  Great teachers, good pace, good material, and fun people.  When I got the feeling in my body of the way she moves, I was ecstatic, I didn’t want to let it go.  I still don’t want to let it go.  It broke me.  It made me so sensitive to every little detail of my partner (which I think I already was), that I couldn’t even social dance that night.  I didn’t show up for the last two days, I was done after that and happy to get ready for the last part of the trip. 

But!  There was something else worth its own paragraph in the trip: the Zouk Island Festival.  Honestly, it was the part I was the least excited about initially, not that I didn’t want to do it, but what I wanted overall was to learn.  On that front, there were leveled classes and I dared consider myself advanced (which I still don’t think I am, but apparently for learning yes), and I enjoyed them very much.  But besides and above that, every night of the festival there were ceremonies.  Omg.  The first night was the opening ceremony, welcoming words were said and the newest dancers were invited to form a circle in the center, then the more experienced around them, then another circle until everybody was surrounded and supported by the people who have been in the community prior to them.  It was beautifully contained, presented and felt.  Then we were invited to form a hive of four people who were going to be our anchors through the festival if we came alone and needed support, a smile, some warmth.  We sat together and shared a bit about us, the real side of us, why we were there, not just what do you do for a living.  Lastly, we were set in motion, walking around, looking at people in the eyes, then dancing in a sort of snowball and by the time we got with the last person, the energy was so hype that I danced until I felt like I was high.  I honestly got a bit scared for a second and had to reason myself that I was not going to be sick, that everything was safe.  I felt like the time I went to a rave, did speed, and couldn’t stop dancing.  I knew I needed to pee and drink water, but I genuinely couldn’t.  So I remember asking the guy who was on the speaker dancing beside me or someone around to help me, and they did.  Same here, I couldn’t stop dancing.  I was sweating and I needed a drink.  I understood how people can dance for three hours with the same person in zouk (which is wildly foreign to wcs dancers).  I had an amazing evening combined with a scooter ride in flip-flops, a dress and no helmet with my hair blowing in the wind.  The epitome of not safe in our western standards, but one of my absolute favorite thing in the world. 

The parties would start early, I think 5pm and finish at 11pm.  There were after parties until 1pm, which I didn’t attend, and felt like I could get my share of dance and still feel fresh for the next day.  On Saturday, everybody got a blindfold, someone I met put it on for me, and we found a space.  After some time to ground, followers got their blindfolds off, started walking around, and stopped in front of a leader.  We led them into different exercises and then we switched roles.  We had to keep our feet grounded and be seaweeds for whom the leaders would encourage movement.  It felt soooo good, that by the time we finished, people came to talk to me and I realized I couldn’t move my feet.  In a good way, I just felt so anchored.  So I stayed there for a while, dancing in place, until a woman came and asked me to dance and I told her I couldn’t move my feet.  She said ok, and started to dance with me on the spot until it felt safe to move.  That was the only dance of the evening for me (and when we say one dance in zouk, it’s however many songs and how long that lasted, which I have no idea of, it is not just one song).  I hung around, had beautiful conversations, and a high-speed scooter ride back. 

The Sunday Cacao ceremony was the absolute highlight of my month.  I had a few dances, then we were called to sit in a huge circle around this magnificent venue we were in (we would dance in a different place/resort on the island every night).  We set an intention from the earth, were handed delicious hot chocolate, sipped it sensuously, started walking around, connecting to others, sharing emotions without talking, the energy upped and upped, then we were animals facing each other, I got in front of my roommate and felt completely high on something as we laughed like maniacs, we ran, we jumped, and we came down.  After that came the element dance.  We had to find a person, chose who would start leading, containing, and who would be free and move with earth.  Surprisingly, that one felt comfortable to me.  I had been working so much on earthing so that felt like great news to me.  Water is me, so that felt like home.  When fire came, I hesitated for a second before stopping in front of someone I know.  I think because I am afraid of showing my fire, I didn’t feel it in him, so I thought I needed to pair with someone who oozed fire.  What a ride!  The host instructed us to dig deep and connect with our needs, what we want and find the fire, and his eyes switch, a darkness that is so alluring, one you only read of in novels, I got high.  I was the first one to lead and I had an hesitation right from the start as I saw what I was about to do and thought: that’s too much, I can’t do that.  But then I said, hell no, he’s an adult, he can decide if it’s too much and stop me, and fire came.  Oufff… it was so intense, so intense I had to go sit outside to process at the end.  We finished with air and another exercise and they started an hour of dancing without any speaking allowed.  I went outside, I didn’t feel like participating in that, wasn’t sure what I wanted, found a staircase that led to a little alcove overlooking the dance floor with an amazingly comfortable chair.  I sat looking at the paper ceiling lamps saying in the breeze and started to process what had happened.  Then they called: last song!  What?  I had been there for two hours, looking at the ceiling, processing, and it was the best night ever.  Monday was the closing ceremony which we finished with our hives and a huge group hug.  I love touch and people, but I always had blockages with these types of group hugs and cuddle puddles for some reason, but this felt aligned.  So I will say, although I didn’t get what I wanted from that month, at all, on any level, I got a lot of what I… needed?  Needed for evolving, and I love evolving and growing.  What didn’t come into dance growth came into interpersonal growth.  And that’s without mentioning the deep conversations about love, relationships, career, life purpose, alignment, patterns, money, menopause, and so much more.  In hindsight?  If you had told me how it was going to go, I would have probably cancelled the trip, but from this side of it, with everything I can hold in my heart from it, I’m really happy I had that experience.

Korea!!!!  You know how everybody has a list, all the countries they absolutely want to see, and places they want to go to?  Well, Korea wasn’t on mine.  Obviously, I am interested in seeing all the things and anywhere in the world my travels and contracts take me, I’ll be happy to discover, but it wasn’t a priority.  It started with rooming with the fabulous Heejung (most likely the top dancer and organizer in Korea) at an event last summer and her inviting me to come to Korean Open.  I was already planning to leave for the winter, as I have promised myself I would do every year going back to Canada, but not until April, but… why not make everything work?  So I took a local bus/truck, to a boat, to a shared taxi, to the beautiful outdoor Koh Samui airport, flew to Bangkok, got my luggage, checked in again, boarded my overnight flight to Seoul, and landed in Incheon.  I was so lucky to have people welcomed me in their house: the apartments there are pretty small and it’s not so common to have people over… especially for a week.  He also came and picked me up from the airport, I got home, took a nap, and thought I’d go explore for an hour before coming back, relaxing, working, and sleeping early.  I ended up walking and exploring for eight hours!!! 

I am so in love with that place, I already know I need to come back.  I want to see the country side, nature, more temples, and more people.  I am sad I don’t speak Korean so I could connect more with the locals.  I love the culture, the esthetics, I want to buy everything: I normally don’t shop or buy many souvenirs, but here… I walked around Seokchon lake and I was lucky to be there in full cherry blossom season.  The landscape was so sweet.  I walked over to Lotte tower and thought, why not, let’s go up and see the view.  Then I saw the sky bridge.  You can put a one piece one, a harness, a helmet, attached yourself to a cable and go walk outside on a skimpy bridge at 541 meters in the sky between two peaks of the building.  Yes.  I got the last spot for the day, and what an experience it was.  I found a vegan restaurant, walked some more, did some groceries trying to mimic what I was looking for to the locals - don’t try it, just use a translator app – and went back home to get some work done.  The next day was pretty relaxed, and then I met with an American girl I knew to walk around Insa-dong, had delicious tea at an old house transformed, was amazed by the eternal juxtaposition of the landscape between old constructions, temples, skyscrapers, green rooftops, shops of all kinds, we found food, shopped around, and talked until my friend left for the evening.  I still had some energy left in me, so I found a wine bar, and went to pole class.  That was a strange experience: a whole hour with two short times on the pole to then take all the filming gears out to make sure everybody had nice videos… ok, so the goal is not to train, but have something for the gram.  This is also where I thought I had learned my lesson about underestimating myself, but no.  I had written to the studio before asking them what level would be appropriate for me, with some top moves I can do.  I am generally advanced in most studios, but you never know, just like taking a wcs lesson in a different country: you might be level 12 at home, but it equates to a novice class over there.  She told me I should come to pre-intermediate.  Ok.  No.  I was not pre-intermediate.  It was like the zouk month all over: paying money to not do anything of substance.  Anyway, one day I will learn.  Let’s make it today. Loll  I thought of going home after that, but the night market was soooo close!  So I walked over and did not regret it.  Fascinating.  Everything about it.  The stalls, the food, the shops, the people, the atmosphere, the lights.  By the time I got home, I had been gone for fourteen hours, and still had to do some work.  I don’t regret anything.

The next day was a lazy working from home morning until everybody was awake and ready to go.  We wondered towards the Starfield Library with my hosts, ate at an awesome vegan restaurant, and walked all the way to the Westie Gangnam studio for my first Korean workshop.  I hadn’t taught a class with a translator for a loooong time.  It’s easy for me to separate my speech into portions that make sense, but I forgot how long it takes to say everything in two languages and how much I have to adjust my teaching.  When I do English/French classes or two languages I can translate myself, it goes faster because I can intertwine them through sentences… but everybody seemed happy with the material!  The social dancing was great, although my body felt like it was in zouk consistence instead of wcs; softer, airier… I’m happy I have a couple days to readjust and find my footings again before having to dance in an Invitational.  Sunday was a lazy morning, a vegan and rice flour (therefore gluten free) bakery, and an excursion to a Unesco Heritage site: the Namhansanseong Fortress.  We had a beautiful spring walk on the walls, and finished the day with the most delicious meal ever at the Tofu House, a very local, very fresh – as in we make the tofu block on the lawn besides the restaurant – very healthy meal!

Monday was another working day… when I mentioned having to work through the trip, lots of people were commenting how sad or inconvenient.  Is it?  Really?  I get to travel the world for two and a half months doing most of what I want, exploring, having extraordinary adventures, but I have to work… GREAT!  I knew that before I left and I am extremely happy with the balance I found.  A good friend from the US arrived that day and we had the honor of a delicious home cooked meal with great conversations.  Tuesday was walking, exploring a new district, coffee shops, shopping without buying anything, and more work.  Then it was time for the DMZ tour.  What an experience!  I had a nagging feeling that we were shown the worse of North Korea, but after that tour… I think we are shown what it is.  The interview with a defector was particularly interesting and touching.  This woman decided to risk her life and her family’s by attempting an escape through China with a broker.  They made it out, and she thought they were going to stay there: they knew nothing about South Korea, but a little bit about China.  It didn’t quite work out for them, but they met a missionary church that helped them get to South Korea… through Cambodia and Vietnam.  They had to swim across a river to escape; she doesn’t swim.  They stayed for five months in a refugee camp in Cambodia.  When they finally made it here, they had to re-learn to live again: what is internet, wifi, how do you make money, how do you shop for shoes with six thousand options.  She haven’t talked to her family that stayed there in a year when they had access to a phone by a Chinese broker.  During the first regime, people would go to work and get “paid” with 700g of rice per day for an adult and 500g for a teenager.  They’d also get clothes and other types of ratios that way.  When the first dictator died and the son took over the country, the ration system collapsed; now people were going to work with no pay and no compensation what so ever.  So people tried and go fish or hunt and exchange at the market… I’m skipping so many details, but to think that this is happening right now, beside us, in the same world we live in… it’s just wild. 

We saw Peace Park and the freedom bridge where the soldiers were exchanged to go back to their countries.  We went to the observatory where we could see propaganda village (a fake village that was constructed close to the border to make it look like North Korea was thriving) and an actual village at the base of the mountain, even saw some people walking around and carrying a wheelbarrow.  We walked down third tunnel, all the way to one of the gate that is, if I recall correctly, 110m away from the border; the closest most of us will ever get to that country.  I was happy to have two friends from the US with me on that tour so we could talk, share, enjoy, and make it a little lighter.  We also visited a beautiful suspension bridge over Majang lake.  That night, I decided to go explore one last area of town I hadn’t seen, and wow!  My favorite place!!!  I wish I had found it before, but I might have just been there for a week and not see anything else, so… It feels like a mini Brooklyn, really cool jazz bars, Spanish tapas, markets, shops, little coffees, speakeasy, gay saunas, and the best vegan restaurant in town.  I am a fan of this city, the culture, the people, the pace, the vibe, the energy!

Last stop on the trip was Korean Open.  I got to the hotel on Thursday, got some work done and social danced early so I could get a somewhat good night of sleep.  On Friday, I came to watch Emeline and Jakub’s intensive and ended up joining as a leader.  It is always so interesting to jump in the rotations again and see how much people think they are doing what the teachers are asking for, but they are not.  Good reminder as a teacher.  Anyway, the theme was really interesting and is something I really want to bring to my students.  I taught one workshop, judged Strictly all-star/champ finals, and watched the pro demo.  I was a bit sad not to join in, but we had one extra follow, so the event director decided to put me in the Invitational instead, which I appreciate and prefer if the choice is there.  After that, I social danced a little bit and ended up nerding out about dance stuff with one of the All-star that was there.  It had been so long I hadn’t danced, I wanted to figure some things out in my body and also in partnering.  It was awesome and ended up with people joining us in the hallway, dancing, sharing, talking, two men exchanging pants for the next day’s competitions.  It was glorious.  Saturday was a pretty easy day for me, and there was finally an AS/Champ class that was not at the same time as my workshop, so I went to learn with Jordan and Tatiana, and… it was exactly what I needed: some footwork practice and connection logic on fast songs.  Not that they were things I hadn’t done before, but they are so not my strong suit and not often lead lately so it felt perfect for me!  

Some more judging, some chilling, and then it was time for the Invitational.  It’s one of those events with a theme in the Invitational and it becomes a whole show on its own… I had heard of it, and was also told they wanted a show.  Ok, no problem… not sure what I’m gonna do, but something will happen.  And then, I realize I am last and after Tatiana.  Ok, we need to strategize times ten. Loll  I have to admit, the first song was K-Pop and the one we had I found a bit hard to attach to anything, thank god the public loved the song and we got the whole crowd to help put on a show.  The second song was Sexyback.  Ok.  That I can do. ;-)  So down I went, onto the floor, and my amazing partner didn’t miss a beat and started to drag me in what became the staple of the weekend.  The all-skate started with everybody in that position, I recreated it with my cute, tiny newcomer leader from the Winner JnJ, and it became one of the charade in the Westie Challenge (a kind of Squid Games meet dance battle epic game).  I had one last workshop on Sunday morning and I think, as people got to know me through the weekend, they liked what they saw and I got asked for so many privates…  You have to remember, I haven’t travelled as much internationally as I used to before Covid (I am totally opened to if you want me at your event), and I am not so present on social media that people would know me from across the world.  So I think when people in Korea see my name on workshops, they don’t really think about it, they come and try, see who this person is, hopefully have fun and learn something, but if they like it… there will be signs.

It is now time to go back home… after two and a half months and about

16 flights

28++ buses/subway rides

2 trains

14 Uber

11 car rides

10 boats

Infinite walking

Unfortunately, I got sick on the weekend.  By the time I finished all my privates Sunday night I was exhausted and almost had no voice.  Ended up with fever all of Sunday night and on my ten hours flight on Monday (which made me think they should offer free re-bookings on flights to not get people sick when you don’t have a couple thousands to do what is morally right).  Now I have no voice at all and desperately trying to do all the right things so I can be in shape for the next event coming up this weekend: Swing in Bloom!

See you soon on the dancefloor!

This blog is not going to be as beautiful and pink skies as the others.  I mean, you’ve read me before having flight troubles, being sick as a dog in public transportation, and a lot more misadventures, but I don’t think you’ve read me before saying: never again.  What a shit show of a vacation.  Worse travel I’ve done in my life and I have done a lot… actually 50 UN sovereign countries as of now, some multiple times!  I wasn’t particularly trying to collect them all before, but it still makes for a nice album.  Before this particular trip, I just had divided a plan to see all the countries in the world before I’m 65, after this leg?  I’m fucking done. Loll  I’m not saying I won’t do it, but I’m saying for the first time in my life I wish I was home… I wish I could go home and reset for a couple weeks before continuing the trip.  Nothing against the Philippines by the way, but the whole thing was a fiasco from beginning to end.

After checking which type of online forms and visa I needed for the country two days before while in the Maldives, I took my overnight flight with a short layover in Singapore to arrive in Manila at 12pm.  I had planned to visit a bit of the city that day after checking into my hotel that was 3km from the airport with a free shuttle, but immigration took so long… you know when you get to the luggage belt (yeah, they made me check-in my carry-on which I hate) another flight has come in and you have no idea where to get your bag?  I finally get out of the airport to miss the free shuttle.  Ok, no worries, I’ll wait for the next one while people are harassing me to taxi me somewhere.  I figure out that the next shuttle is in an hour and a half.  Ok, no worries, I’ll take a cab then, it can’t be that expensive for a 3km ride in the Philippines, right?  This man brings me to his friend, who brings me to the other friend, puts my luggage in the trunk and I ask how much, how much?  Not too much mam!  How much?  2850 pesos.  I enter the amount on my phone in my money converter because I haven’t even check what the currency is and what is the equivalence: 70$CAD?????  What?  No thank you, I’ll wait for the bus and start exiting the car.  No mam, we do cheaper 2000, but fees for card.  No.  That is way more than I would even pay at home for transportation.  Mam wait.  No.  Ok, 1250 pesos no fee for card.  I’m so fucking done by that point and stuck there and I want to get to the hotel that I say yes.  We can all laugh at me now great.  I get to the hotel, wait in line for the check in, by the time I am in my room, it is 5pm.  Fuck this, I do not want to be more frustrated or tired or angry to start the trip, things are slower here and it’s fine, it’s on me to adjust so I’ll just stay and enjoy the nice hotel I got for myself, have dinner, enjoy the rooftop pool with a drink and call it a night.  Again, a me problem, but Filipino food is really good and appreciated (I think, from what I hear anyway) if you eat meat.  I am vegetarian by choice and now gluten free after developing celiac last year.  I spend an hour try to get a vegetarian gluten free meal from this hotel, now this is not a cheap hotel, this is the Grand Westside Manila, to end up getting tiny spring rolls without the tofu because somehow what I can’t eat got lost in translation.  So a couple rice noodles and slices of carrots for dinner and wine.  Let’s call it a night and start fresh in the morning!

I have to say that I booked an organized tour for this leg of the trip.  I had only done one before, last summer in Morocco, and it was awesome (even if I got sick like a dog shitting myself on a 6 hour car ride, so that tells you how good the whole trip was and that I have some resilience).  It was a small group so we could arrange our schedule as we wished, our tour guide was awesome, so I told myself that id I redid a tour, I would also do it only as part of a small group.  TourRadar had matched me with five other people and finally put me in a Whatsapp with them so we could communicate.  I realize I am matched with a family.  Not strangers who are being put together for this trip, just me sixth wheeling this couple with the parents of the woman and the father of the man.  I’m hoping not to intrude too much, spend time with them, but also let them be so they have time as a family.  Honestly, thank god they were there because they ended up being the best part of my trip.  The flight is uneventful (my new favorite word) and I end up meeting them as we exit the airport in Boracay.  We get showed in a small van to a boat where we have to wade through the water to get on and pay people to put our luggage on or risk having everything wet.  Cool.  Different.  Interesting.  I get to the hotel, it takes an hour to check-in, by that time, it’s been six hours of travel on this day which was meant to be, or so I thougth, an easy one hour flight and enjoy the rest of the day at the beach.  Oh well, no worries, I walked on the beach that evening by myself, went into shops, talked with locals, and found a nice restaurant with awesome live music.  Not a bad day after all!

The hotel is ok… really noisy at all time of the night, so I don’t feel rested in the morning, but it’s just a vacation so that shouldn’t bother me so much.  I meet some of the family at the breakfast buffet where I can eat rice, eggs and fruits; that will do to start the day.  We get to the beach for our first excursion: island hoping!  Yes!  We wait.  We get showed on a boat with 50 other people.  Squeeze, sit closer, tighter.  We wait some more.  And we depart.  The boat ride is smooth, the weather is nice.  We get to the first beach.  Ok, sir, mam, you can swim here.   It is a tiny strip of beach with so many boats anchored you’re not sure where you’re supposed to get in.  We find a spot to go in, but more boats come in and are honking us to get out of the way.  Ok we’ll just go walk on the beach, we have 30 minutes after all.  I walk until an abandoned hotel, and start coming back because I am always cautious of time and wanting to be respectful of other people.  At the same time, we’ve been made to wait so many times, that I am not going to come back to the boat early.  With five minutes to spare, I get close to the boat, everybody is on, the guy is screaming at me to come back, the family brought my stuff back thankfully.  We laughed it off, whatever.

Then we get to the second spot: you can stay on the boat or pay 100 pesos to swim.  Mmm… ok, 100 pesos is not much, but I thought we paid for that tour already and I certainly am not going to stay on the boat and do nothing.   They give us mask, but no snorkel.  I see someone else with a snorkel, please can I get one also.  Ok, we swim with tiny fish and a dead reef under, nothing compare to what I saw in the Maldives, but it’s fun just to be out there and experience a bit of snorkeling again.  Ok, everybody get back on the boat, we will go to Crystal Cove, but first we stop for lunch.  This is where we started to get a bit delirious.  At that point, we’ve been gone for 4-5 hours, we have swam the equivalent of 30 minutes, waited and not seen much.  We land on this island beside Crystal Cove for a buffet in a restaurant that was… the best way to describe it is that one of the people in our group called it Crystal Meth Island and yes.  They have a vegetarian plate for me which consists of boiled carrots and cabbage.  Ok.  Also worth mentioning, my stomach isn’t feeling great and the toilet don’t have a seat or toilet paper or bidet or water to wash your hands.  I feel disgusting.  But again, a me problem, nothing I can’t handle, I’ve roughed it before.  We finish the meal and navigate to Crystal Cove.  Sir, mam, you have to pay 300 pesos if you want to go in the island.  Fuck that.  We decide to all sit and have a drink on the tiny beach.  We start joking about helmet diving, which is supposed to be the next stop, and how they are going to have a tube to feed us air while we’re under there and whisper in it: Mam, sir, 300 pesos for CO2.  You want to breathe or no?  Really good laughter, I’m happy I am with them, we all know it wasn’t a really good day, but being along would just have been sad, when now we can share the memories together.  They bring us back to the beach and we ask: Is there no helmet diving?  Yes, but you have to go on another boat now.  We rush to a bathroom to come back as quick as possible and… wait.  By now it’s what?  3pm?  We’ve been gone since 8m?  Not sure of the time, but something like that.  We look at each other, two of them already said fuck that and left, and decide not to go.  Wait sir mam, the boat is coming!  Ok, but are we just us on the boat or it’s 50 other people and we have to wait more.  Just you!  Ok.  Wait more.  Decide not to go.  Boat is there.  Ok, let’s go.  Four of us.  I’m thinking, there is no gear on this boat, strange, where are the helmets?  I see we are driving towards a platform with lots of people on it.  Oh no.  We get there and ask: how long to wait?  30m. In Filipino time that means 1h.  We ask the boat to bring us back to shore, we’re done.  We laughed the day off that night, one bad excursion, it can’t get worse right?  Never say that.

It is Valentine’s evening.  I join the family for a nice dinner.  Everything is going smoothly, until… Connor is feeling queasy.  He decides to go back and I will everything I have so it would be just the heat of the day in the sun.  An hour later, he write to Cheyanne and we figure out that he got the short straw on Crystal Meth Island: everything is coming out.  Cheyanne goes take care of him and I end up staying with Jimi.  I finally get my plate of vegetables, two hours after ordering.  My new partner in crime convinces the restaurant owner to give us a glass of wine for free to compensate for the wait since it’s our honeymoon.  Our asses are merry, after having had a couple.  On our way back, we stumble upon an amazingggg singer!  His voice would just soar through you and hit you deep in the chest.  He manages to rope us into coming into the restaurant.  We sit in the front and order more wine while witnessing greatness.  Jimi makes a song request, the one from our wedding, Valerie by Amy Winehouse.  We are so jolly, we make a video of drinking our wine with arms intertwined and send it in the Whatsapp group.  Now this is the father of Connor and the two others with us are Cheyanne’s parents, Carrie and Jeremy.  They woke up to this craziness.  You’re welcome.  Honestly, it was one of the best night of the trip… because it wasn’t part of the tour. 

The next day is transportation day from Boracay to Cebu.  For some reason, I am not on the same flight as them.  I leave 30 minutes earlier than them to take a bus, to the ferry, to the bus, to the airport, to a bus, to the plane, to an hour cab ride to the hotel.  By the time I get settled, it’s been seven hours of moving around.  I had contacted the tiny Cebu wcs community before coming and the dates didn’t align to do anything, but Vitalie, who is the one building it here, was there to visit his fiancé.  I decided to reach out to them and go for a city tour.  Again, best part of the trip… not part of the tour.  They came to pick me up on their scooter and we ordered a scooter driver for me through an app.  I loooove riding on scooters, motorcycle.  We get downtown and there is a gigantic mass at Basilica del Santo Nino.  We walked in, the place is magnificent, but naturally we can’t take pictures or videos during the ceremony.  We then check out Magellan’s Cross and walk to Fort San Pedro where tons of people are dancing in small groups, filming TT, having fun, playing…  Then we wanted to go to Tops.  That was a bit more complicated as the scooters don’t go all the way there.  So we passed through Ayala (the biggest shopping mall) and then I ordered a cab to get all the way to the top of the mountain to this incredible view point.  I thought it was going to be just a platform, but it was this incredible building/restaurant/platform/viewpoint construction.  I definitely wish we would have had more time there, maybe arrive earlier, see the sunset, grab a glass of wine.  Then it was time to leave… no taxis, crazy traffic, no scooters.  No worries, there is a bus that goes closish to where I’m staying.  Gigantic line.  Like Gigantic.  So gigantic that we thought it ended halfway to where it actually went.  Two hours wait minimum to get a bus.  I’m stuck there, I’m tired, we have a fucking excursion in the morning that our tour guide just informed us starts at 4am.  Vitalie asks us to come in the arcades with him.  Ok.  Actually going there saved me from being on a scooter in the downpour.  Always say yes.  But yeah, by the time we were done at the arcade, I was like: I’ll find anybody with a scooter that’s willing to bring me down and I’ll pay them whatever.  We found someone.  250 pesos.  Sold.  I looooved the ride!  All the way down the mountain side to the city, wind in my hair (well, helmet, but same thing). 

When I finally get to the hotel, I see Jeremy and Carrie with their luggage right in front.  Oh, oh.  What’s going on?  They tell me they had cockroaches crawling on them in the bedroom, that they are getting another hotel for the night and they are done with this fucking tour.  Oh boy… I mean, I didn’t mention that when I checked in, it looked more like a prison cell than a hotel room.  I didn’t even know where to open my luggage.  We checked online: 6$/night for this hotel.  Listen, it’s not that I can’t “rough it up”, I have before.  They can also.  It’s just that we paid a tour that costed a certain amount of money and didn’t get any worth for it.  Our tour guide’s answer was: We normally don’t book this hotel for guest, but when we have in the past, we haven’t had any problems.  Also, it’s because when we tried and book, last minute everything else was booked in the city so we didn’t have a choice but to put you there.  Bullshit.  Carrie and Jeremy got a room for two nights after looking for two minutes.  So the entire trip was excuses, poor value for the money we spent, lies and deceptions.  Look, if you tell me that the tour is a six person tour, that there is a two hour ride to X place, that we’ll be staying in 4 stars hotels; that’s what I’m expecting!  But when we are showed with 50 other people or more every step of the way, that the ride to the excursion in four hours, and that there are cockroaches in the prison cell I’m sleeping in… that’s not the same thing.  And definitely not worth the same amount of money.

So after that, to save me from anger and because it’s my own damn vacation, I can do whatever I want, I decided not to go to the excursion the next day.  We told our tour operator we weren’t going.  Knock knock knock at my hotel door.  No!  Is it like 7am and they want to come in and clean?  I’m so tired.  I thought I had put the Do not disturb sign on my door.  Knock knock knock.  NO THANK YOU.  Mam, you have an excursions.  I look at my phone, it’s 3h50am.  WTF?  NO I AM NOT GOING THANK YOU.  Again, how did the message not get from our tour guide to these people??  Now, the excursion sounded really cool, two hours’ drive to go swim with whale sharks and then canyoneering for an hour, and the two hour drive home.  I had done some research that night: everything I could find online said it was a four hour drive.  Hell no.  Jimi went.  Here is how it went for him.  They drove four hours, got to the whale sharks and got a number: 438.  They were at 100 something.  He was told to wait in a tent.  He waited for three hours, they were still at about 250 something.  Because he was alone, they managed to squeeze him in with a group at that time… otherwise it would have been another three hours.  He got in the water, they gave him a mask.  No snorkel tube.  They said they don’t give them any more since Covid.  He got to swim for twenty minutes.  Out.  He’s been gone since 4am, by that time it’s noon and he knows he has another four hours’ drive back.  He asked them not to go canyoneering and came back.  I would have been so pissed.  So pissed.  So I am really happy that we decided, with the others, to go to a private resort for the day: 16$.  We took a cab to the strays hotel and had a freaking delicious latte, then another cab to the resort, beach, pool, fresh mango juice, French fries, relaxation… after three hours there, I realized it was the first time I felt relaxed since arriving in the Philippines.  Best day of the trip.  Again, not part of what I had already paid for.  The others left early, I wanted to enjoy every last second of that day so I left later and did some work until midnight. 

The next day was already travel day.  Cebu to Puerto Princesa.  We debated booking our own hotel, but decided we would check the one they got us out and see what we wanted to do after.  Our flight was delayed, but we were all in a positive mood, everybody had a good feeling about that island, and we were all excited about visiting the underground river tour Unesco site.  The hotel was ok, we had some food there and an early night.  Next day’s pick up was between 6:30 to 7am, but make sure you are there early.  I wake up at 5h45am, get to the breakfast buffet, try not to eat or drink too much cause I know there won’t be any bathrooms in sight for the next however many hours.  We wait.  Six thirty.  Seven.  Seven thirty.  Message from our tour guide: As per 5am today, the coast guard station has deemed the weather unsafe for the excursion.  Tour is cancelled.  Ok.  Why are we only getting to know this now?  Are we getting our money back?  WTF are we supposed to do for the day at our hotel not by the beach, with a shit pool?  Let’s keep the positive energy of the day, let’s book a city tour.  So we all get in a van together.  First stop, butterfly garden.  It’s a box with butterflies and an enclosed village where the indigenous people look to be sequestered and have to perform for us.  Ok.  By this point I’m delirious and cry-laughing non-stop.  We then go to Baker’s hill where the tour guide tells us we can get a box.  So many jokes were made.  Then we are dropped at a tourist market for pearls where there is nothing else to do than by pearls.  Finally, we see Plaza cuartel and the church which were the two most interesting parts.  Oh well, not a success, but we spent half the day.  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was done.  I decided to get work done that I was going to spread out a bit more through time.  I had worked the night before, worked that day for nine hours, worked the next morning for five more; that was the best use I could think of my time there.

The last day was travel day from PP to Manila.  Jimi offered to stay with him at the hotel they had booked which is directly connected to the airport and I accepted gratefully: I couldn’t stand the idea to find transportation to my hotel to then come back in the morning for my flight out.  I was so done.  Connor and Cheyanne left and the rest of us had a lovely night eating and drinking on the rooftop of the Belmont.  Of this entire shit show, the best part was meeting this awesome, smart, kind, energetic, and easy-going family.  Much love!

So… I thought I was going to make one blog post with my two and a half months of travels, but I already have so much to say that I decided to start writing. 

I left you last time at the beginning of 2026.  Yes, it feels far away already, like many lifes contained in one.  Good thing I like movement in all its forms and change.  The first month of the year was a marathon for me to be able to leave for my travels.  Everybody told me at the beginning of the year: you can’t open a studio and leave for two and a half months six months later!  Oh yeah?  Watch me.  Well, as everything, it is possible, but it comes at a price.  This is what I wish everybody understood: you can do anything you want in life, it is yours to choose, but everything has a price.  The price for me was 16 hours days for months, seven days a week.  Until January, I managed, but that last month before leaving?  Oh boy!  Even with that amount of hours it wasn’t covering what I had to do.  The good thing about it, is that I have a really hard time delegating.  Finding what I can delegate to start with.  But, I didn’t have a choice to start separating my tasks in smaller chunks and finding which one I could give to other people.  Then I also had to train those people in what I needed to be done.  Let’s just say that it was an intense month.  Add medical exams and appointments to do before leaving, preparing my apartment and my car for a sublet, trying (and mostly failing) to see people before leaving…

Would I recommend it?  Mmm… depends how much you want it.  I’m happy I did it because I needed to leave this year.  I needed to leave because it is my fortieth birthday, I have freedom which is really important to me, and I think you should enjoy what you have in life with the choices you’ve made and what hand life dealt you.  For me, the family card didn’t pan out and since the last two years had been geared towards that, I hadn’t left in the winter as I had promised myself I would do every year if I came back to Canada… so this year had to be big.  Did it have to be so much?  No.  I think I got carried away with options and opportunities and as soon as I booked it, I regretted some parts of it.  I wasn’t as excited as I always have been to leave and I kept thinking and telling people it was because I was so busy, I didn’t have time to get excited yet.  Tomorrow, tomorrow, the day after.  But it never came the same way as it use to.  The first truth of it I know is because so many dance opportunities that had been sliding between my fingers for the last few years, started to resurface and I could see that I was going away from them.  I told myself it would be a good time to reflect instead of throwing myself into it head first like I usually do.  And has been… but I think there were other underlying reasons.  I didn’t feel the Philippines leg and I was unfortunately right (I’ll explain soon), and also… I am starting to like the life I am building for myself in Montreal.  I told myself last summer that I would put everything I’ve got into building a life there: what I need and want on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, yearly; find an apartment I like and actually invest in it, decorate, buy things, have people over, make it a home; open a studio and invest in the local community; find where I want to train and what motivates me as training (yoga, pole, aerial, dance); spend time with friends and family and invest in my relationships; leaving for at least one month in the winter because I know I always get depressed by February… and I told myself that it didn’t matter that I didn’t know how it was going to work out (especially financially), that I was going to make it happen.  After all that, if I still didn’t like it, I would leave for good.  It was my last try for Montreal.  Do I want to leave now?  No.  Do I have this deep feeling now that wherever I went and put that much energy into making it a home, it would become it?  Yes.  So while I was sitting on a paradisiac beach in the Maldives, looking across the ocean, I thought: I miss home. 

Which brings me to my last gig before leaving: Ottawa.  This community is one of the most... homey I know.  It feels… accepting.  It feels… welcoming.  And so, for the first time in my career, I didn’t social dance while being hired as a pro teacher.  I’ll explain more so you can understand the thought process.  No matter what anybody says; that you are not obligated to social dance, that you are paid to teach and not to dance, that you should be allowed to do what you will with your own body in your free time: people expect you to dance.  I expect myself to dance.  Most of the time I want to dance.  Sometimes I am exhausted and would love to just be social and talk, but I feel that if people see me out and about, they will ask me to dance and I will feel obligated to say yes.  Either way, I normally to try to get a minimum of social dancing in anywhere I go.  That dance weekend was the first since New Year, and if you’ve read my last post, you know what happened then (feel free to go read it now if you haven’t, but trigger warning).  I didn’t realize that I didn’t want to dance with men still.  What I needed was the reassuring presence of strong, smart, beautiful, kind, amazing women around me and I got it.  I ended up sitting on the coach all night and having different women come sit beside me and talk for minutes or hour at a time.  Women I’ve known for a long time, friends, new faces; it was so needed.  I did see and feel the men around trying to come in, but also sensing the vibe and nobody cut in, except one person in the most respectful and nice way possible, and it was soooo appreciated.  For me to be able to do that and follow my instincts and what I needed, even if I did feel guilty about it and like I should explain myself, took a community and place of acceptance.  So I want to thank the Ottawa community for giving me that when I needed it.  Much love to you all.  I’m also really grateful with the time I had with my two beautiful friends Maria and Clare enjoying my favorite food – Spanish tapas – and going to see an all women comedy show.  Final bonus, I got to visit my aunt and uncle in their home for the first time.  They have been there for twenty-five years… let’s just say it was overdue!

I packed the day before my flight, a carry-on for two and a half months, hoping I had everything I needed.  I finished the last preparation and my good friend Dominic came to my place to have lunch with me.  I think that made it even harder to leave: to have someone who cares that much, who I admire, who has a really busy life and takes the time to come and see me before I leave.  Also realizing I hadn’t been the best of friend in the last few months.  I tried to balance it all with the studio opening, but the two things that ended up falling by the wayside when it got too much, were the things for me: training and seeing family and friends.  For some reason, I couldn’t check in online, the airport kiosk didn’t work, all the employees seemed pissed and annoyed, I kept being sent to a different place until they finally let me get in line for check-in.  I decided to keep a good energy and let the people who want to have a bad day, have it.  The lady at the counter was really nice to me, I explained that the online check-in didn’t work and that the kiosk told me that the agent had a message for me.  She looked at me and said: Would you like to go directly to Rome and then to the Maldives, instead of Montreal-Belgium-Italy-Maldives?  Yes.  And that is how I got awarded another day in my life: instead of flights and layovers, a full day in Rome!  I landed, got through border control, found a place to leave my luggage (paid way too much for it when I came back), figured out the train to downtown and started walking.  First stop, a small coffee shop for an espresso at the counter.  Second stop, a cozy restaurant for my favorite summer meal: caprese salad, French fries and wine.  Third stop, Colosseum.  Fourth stop, never mind, start running through the streets I have been walking on because I dropped my glasses (the vision ones) somewhere.  Magically found them and could breathe again.  Fifth stop, Trevi fountain.  Sixth stop, local market.  Seventh stop, gluten free pastry.  Eight stop, train station back to the airport.  I used all of my power to sleep on both overnight flights and surprisingly got to Velana airport two days later without being utterly exhausted.  I found a few girls from the pole retreat I was going to, that had already landed, who told me to go check in for the boat ride to the hotel.  They didn’t have my name.  I managed to convince them to let me board and figure it out with the hotel later.  Apparently, I arrived a day before the retreat… this is the least organized I have been for travels, and I have been unorganized before.  I had to buy myself another hotel night on top of the retreat, but it was still worth it for one more day in paradise.  After a delicious dinner at a nearby restaurant, it was finally time for a night of horizontal sleep.

The next day, finally settled and well on the island of Thulusdhoo, we decided to walk to Dream beach with a few of the girls who were already there, swim, enjoy the sun and take some pictures.  This is when I realized that I was absolutely not up to date on my Instagram game and that I was about to learn a lot through the week.  These girls are professional photographers and posers.  I could literally see the difference in posing, angles, lighting as they went.  I tried and mimic the best I can.  It definitely worked: I have some of the best photos of my life from those ten days, when I look like a troll in most of the ones I tried to take myself in the Philippines a week later.  We had a reunion that evening with all the amazing women who were there for the pole retreat and the leader gave us some goody bags after we introduced ourselves.  What a strange dichotomy: doing a pole retreat in the Maldives, a Muslim country.  I know most people don’t think of that when they think of that place, because all we see from it are overwater bungalows on private islands.  Until 2018, it was the only way to travel there and see the beauty of it: have shit loads of money so you could not only buy your plane ticket to get there, but then spend minimum 500$USD a night on a resort but upward to 5000$USD a night.  Let’s just say that even at the minimum, it was out of my budget.  But a few years back, they opened a bunch of hotels and resorts on local islands, so you don’t need to drain your savings or put a new loan on your house to visit: you can stay at a decent hotel, have good food and go for excursions.  You will then be with the locals, also have to follow local rules and not be able to drink alcohol unless you take a boat to a floating bar at sea or pay for an all-inclusive day pass on a private island.  For me, what it meant, was also feeling stuck as a woman and realizing that I am putting money towards something that I do not support.  I do not want to have to cover up, I want to have full bodily autonomy, I want to interact with the locals, I want to see women roaming around freely, laughing and enjoying themselves.  So it made me rethink my big plan of visiting every country in the world… do I really want to go everywhere?  How do I pick and choose?  How do I know where it’s more open, where it’s safe?  I’ll be in Indonesia soon, what’s the difference?  I also think that if you live it, you have a better chance of understanding it… but I didn’t understand it there.  I understood some of it in Morocco. I understood how good the womanhood felt together, unspoken in front of men, hidden in the shadow, but stronger for it.  Here, I couldn’t feel it.  It also makes me feel judgmental.  All that to say, I have a lot of thinking to do.

I had the opportunity (yes, that’s how we’re going call it) to be stung by a jellyfish as soon as I got into the water on my first day.  The more experiences, the more stories, right?  I got put in the advanced group for the pole training and was a bit scared about it, especially after I saw the amazing looking, strong, muscular, flexible, intense women in my group, but I could hang!  I do not know if it was intended that way, but the three teachers had such a different style that each student, no matter what our preferences were, could find their joy.  Jasmine is a really soft spoken woman and her classes were mostly spin pole and geared towards cleaning and details.  Lisa’s classes were axed towards strength shapes and moves and Jenya’s classes were energetic and more towards twisty combos.  A really interesting mix for the week!  We also had a low flow class with Lisa on the rooftop which was so dirty.  I mean, yes, the choreography, but mostly the floor: we ended up covered in dust from head to toes after rolling in it for an hour and a half.  One morning was for stretching on the beach, early enough to not be scorched by the sun, late enough to feel the heat.  Some of the days we had two classes, others just one and a day off in the middle.  Training wise, it was perfect.  I always tend to want more, but allowing for relaxation time and some excursion, the balance of it truly felt like a vacation.

On one of the evening, we walked all the way to sunset beach to take some pictures and videos and just enjoy the view.  Honorable mention, in this paragraph about extracurricular activities, for the meals: every meal took one to two hours to be served.  To be fair, they were all delicious.  But… damn, I’ve never spent so much time sitting and waiting for food in my life.  Lunch orders were mostly staggered so I’d say on average one hour to get your food, but dinner?  I tried to pre-order a couple of the nights, but it was a running gag: I was always the last or close to to be served.  Now that I am gluten free and vegetarian (the latest by choice, the latter by sickness), it makes it real hard to eat in some countries.  Let me tell you, I’ve never had so much vegetable fried rice in my life.  No soy sauce (cause gluten, oh yes), extra egg and tofu (need some protein).  I wasn’t sick of it by the end of the week, but my belly definitely needs more diversity then that.  We had a bingo night when I got pooped on by a bird, so we used this event to test the theory of luck.  It did work: I won a prize.  But there were many prizes for the amount of people we were, so I’m not sure how conclusive our experimental study was.  On another day, they had us participate in a crab race.  They draw this big circle inside of another one, give us all a little crab they’ve gathered on the beach, bring them to the center, and the first one to cross the smaller circle’s circumference wins. 

It didn't beat traditional Maldivian night!  They had craftwomen there all day showcasing their art, a huge buffet at night, and songs and dances for hours which we were invited to watch and then participate in.  All men.  Serving, playing, dancing.  But there was an opening… interesting.  The next day, I walked in the water and told myself I as going to swim to the seawall, literally 5 meters away, but somewhat so scary to me.  I had seen some girls do it the first day, had tried, but got scared with the current.  I love water and it scares me a lot.  Tide was low, I could literally walk, didn’t even have to swim across.  I calm my breathing, slow down my heartbeat and try to rationalize myself: nothing can happen, we are safe.  I get on the seawall, find the perfect roc and lounge there for a while.  So proud.  See, everything is ok, everything is safe… until I walk back.  I step on something that starts moving, I react, take my foot off and see this fish not moving.  I take a rock to nudge it a bit to see it better and be able to describe it to the activity guy on the beach if needs be.  I get out of the water, it hurts, I tell the girls and they tell me I should tell someone.  So I go to the guy, he asks me to describe the fish and goes: Ah, it sounds like a stone fish.  If it’s a baby, it’s not that venomous.  Ok, but how not venomous?  How worried should I be?  Oh shit, now it’s bleeding, it’s an open wound.  He makes me sit down and takes care of my poor little foot and instructs me to keep it clean… which is the easiest thing to do when you live on an island of sand for a week.  Anyway, all that to say, I was fine, except for a wound that stayed open for seven days (Ocean 2, Sonya 0), but I took advantage of the situation to start a discussion with beach man.  The opening I felt at Maldivian night.  Like all places, there were indigenous people before anybody else with a whole culture and customs.  Turns out that the culture was really matriarchal, lunar even.  Who would have thought?  Nakaiy Nevi is the season calendar.  Iruvaa and Hulhangu being the two periods of the year, having 9 and 18 sub-divisions lasting about two weeks each, related to the moon.  It tells you what the weather generally is, if the fishing is good, the meaning of it… it’s fascinating.  He explained the basics on how to read the weather that is ever so fast changing on an island, told me more about growing up there, his pa… it is one of my best memory of my trip.  Interesting how any experience can be associated to any meaning, nothing is inherently good or bad, it’s what you affix to it.

I took advantage of the foot needing to be clean excuse to lounge at the rooftop infinity pool and read more.  I have been reading so much.  As I write this text, I have been gone exactly three weeks and I have read five books.  Like, six-seven (ahahah) hundred pages books!  Yeah for a kindle when you have to pack lightly, but you are an avid reader and your brain is finally relaxed enough for you to do so.  One day, we walked further down the beach, to catch a boogie, to catch a ferry to go snorkel with turtles and walk on sandbanks.  The sandbanks are one of the incredible features you see from people’s IG when they visit: just strips of white sand in the middle of the clearest turquoise water you have ever seen.  It was absolutely stunning, and again a marathon of pictures and videos with the crew.  I had been snorkeling once in my life before that and with some of my poor/traumatic experiences in open water, I was pretty stress.  They handed us our snorkel and even as I put the mask on, I could feel the panick rising.  I sat down in the boat and willed myself to breathe slower.  Nothing can happen, we are safe (not sure how that worked after the other day, but oh well!).  I put the mouth piece on in the boat and breathed.  Ok, I think I can do it.  I jumped in the water and thought I was going to freak out if I got away from people, but it was the opposite: there were too many people who weren’t comfortable, too close to me, hitting or grabbing me and I went: Fuck no.  So I elbowed my way out of the crowd and started swimming.  Wow.  Once you find the calmness, you get it.  You get what the hype is all about.  So I swam along the reef, a combination of some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  I didn’t feel like I was in the middle of nowhere because the reef was always there to give me a marker.  Then we saw it.  The turtle.  Beautiful creature.  It swam right under me and everything in the world was right.  What an experience.  I was so happy to finally have a great experience in the water to offset the bad ones, that when the next day came and we had a shark excursion and something in my guts told me not to go, I cancelled.  Now if you know me, this is not like me: if it scares me, if I committed, if it’s paid for, I go.  But no.  I had a bad feeling and I wanted to keep the good experience in my heart.  My friends went.  Horrible experience: stormy sea, crazy waves, people vomiting left and right, some saw one shark, some nothing, some swore not to go back on the ocean for a long while after that.  I was so happy I didn’t go! 

We then had a karaoke night to sing all our worries away and oh, we did!  I even dared sing a French song with the one French girl who was there: somehow it felt less intimidating to sing in a language nobody understood.  One of the last activity was a sunset cruise to, hopefully, see dolphins.  It had gotten pushed back because of weather and when the day came, it felt right.  We went out on the boat to the middle of nowhere and chased them.  I went forward to the bow and sat out for a better view.  Some of the girls join me and we witnessed one of the best sunset since we had gotten on the island and dolphins jumping around and playing in waves.  This is what feeling blessed is.  For our last day together, the organizer had a few surprises for us.  The day started with a pole photoshoot on the beach.  Now, it all sounds like fun and games until it’s your turn, you have 5m to create some amazing shapes, you don’t have a mirror to know if any of it makes sense, the sun is making you sweat, you have no sunscreen on in an attempt not to slide, but your sliding anyway because you’re so warm, you have sand everywhere, you can’t stop scrunching your brows, and you ultimately don’t feel sexy at all, while hoping the pictures look like the opposite of that.  Honestly, it was a blast… and exhausting.  One of the teachers had brought a mermaid tail and I made the best out of it before we left to cool down.  For our last night, we had a tropical themed party organized for us on the rooftop with mocktails, snacks, a DJ, some games, more pictures and videos, dancing, limbo, and where they ultimately took the drone out because our crazy asses (me being the most pushy of them all) decided it’d be fun to all jump together in the pool with our nice dresses.  So we made our best attempt at an improbable and improvised aquatic ballet.  What a life!  We started saying our goodbyes that night; some people were leaving early in the morning, I was one of the lucky one to have a late flight so I enjoyed one more day of lounging in the sun with my leftover friends until we got the bus, to get to the boat, to get to the plane.  Another overnight flight and I was in the Philippines. 

Last blog I had been mostly at home, moving in, building a studio.  This one?  Full blown travel schedule, just like I like it.  Although my body is exhausted.  I started the month of November with Tampa Bay Classic.  I hadn’t been in Florida for a while and it was such a blast to see everybody.  Everybody I use to live close to and see at all the events in the area.  I arrived just in time to get to the hotel, change and get on the floor to do a strictly with PJ.  We did make finals and had a fun dance and… I injured my back.  How come?  Well, yes, sitting on a plane for hours, rushing to put clothes and make up is apparently not a good warm up enough.  Anyway, we had fun and it was a pretty chill weekend contract wise for me so I had time to catch up with friends, eaves drop on workshops and take a private lesson with Robert Royston.  I have been really inclined to learn lately.  More than I had been in the previous years, where the focus was on building a new business and surviving.  It feels good to see what is offered and make sure my teaching is still relevant to 2026 WCS.

The weekend after was Midnight Madness, again a pretty light contract that allowed me to reconnect with people and learn.  On the fun side of things, I was asked to referee judge for the first time.  I thought I was going to hate it, just counting, not really enjoying the routines, but it was more fun than expected.  Not saying it will be my favorite job to do in the community, but I’ll definitely be available for it if needs be.  On the less fun side of things… before Covid, I had the opportunity to be in a Champion JnJ maybe once every two years, because they didn’t exist in Europe (where I was mostly hired) and when I was in the States, I was hired at small events that were offering an Invitational JnJ.  If you look at my points, I have about 7 Champion points, which with the new rules, is not enough to be considered fully Champion, so regression to All-Star/Champion level.  Useless to say that during Covid, I didn’t have the opportunity to compete (like the rest of the community) and, since then, I’ve been hired at a lot of workshop weekends.  I love doing those because I love teaching, and, to be honest, they are better financially.  Then I’ve been hired at all Canadian events, which do not have Champion JnJ.  So I might have had 3 occasions to be in a JnJ since then?  One I didn’t make finals, the third I placed, the second is Midnight Madness and… first song of prelims: my partner drops me on my head and him on top of me.  The sound it made was so loud that they stopped the competition for the head judge to come talk to me and see if I wanted to continue.  Sure, yes.  Adrenaline and I don’t want to miss my one opportunity.   Somehow I made finals.  But I was so unsure and unsafe.  Thank god I got PJ whom I trust and love dancing with so I could feel a bit safer, but yeah, let’s say it was a smooth dance, but not an extraordinary dance. 

After that, I had a contract to teach in Waterloo.  If you don’t know Mikaela: she is a queen of business and community building.  She is so good at it that she decided to quit her PhD in friction of re-entry of spaceship (obviously I’m messing it up and it’s way more interesting than that), but she was literally a rocket scientist, but she was so good at the dance thing that she let it all go and went into dance full time.  I have built communities, I have seen people build some more, I have helped the process, but I don’t know what this woman does, I swear she’s a genius at it.  Anyway, if you need tips, definitely contact her.  I say all that because after starting the community from zero three years ago, she now opened a studio and somehow manages to bring pros in four times a year!  She is also starting her own event in February of this year.  My time there was so smooth: great workshops, spotlight critiques, private lessons, well fed, awesome dancing, perfect conversation and turning water into wine (that’s an in person conversation if you want the full story).

Now, The Open.  Wow.  There are so many things to say and I am sure I will miss half of them.  I woke up at 2:30am to get to the airport and take the shitty flight I had booked for myself (good job, Sonya).  I knew it was going to be tight to get to my judging assignment, so on my last layover, the long 20m one, I went to the airport bathroom, stripped down, did my make up, shifted a few things in my luggage so I could land, walk across the street and go judge.  As life will have it, we boarded the plane and… got deplaned.  They always say: it will only be 30m, but this ain’t my first rodeo.  So I called the head judge and said I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make it.  I got there way too late, still ran across to see if they needed me, but they had already replaced me.  The show most go on.  So now I felt bad for missing basically my entire judging assignment for the weekend, my first time being hired at The Open.  I checked in, went into my room and got down for the evening competitions.  I kept having a feeling that I needed to dress up, but I was telling myself there was no reason to dress up.  Halfway through the evening, the chief judge called me. 

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the ballroom…”

“Go change now.  We need you to judge, one of the judge just got sick.”

I ran like a maniac to my room, changed and came back to judge the biggest division: 28 couples on the floor.  Wow!  What an opportunity.  To be there, to witness greatness, to be part of who decides what shapes the face of West Coast Swing for the year, to feel part of something bigger than me, and to finally fulfill my judge’s duty.  I thought it was going to be harder than it actually was.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I got to be part of the Opening ceremony as staff and as a representative of Canada (I know, they don’t have a Quebec flag yet…); I just walked in, back out and in again with the new group. Loll  Then I danced Strictly with the amazing Philippe Amar who is not only a great dancer, but also an awesome human being.  He is not living in Florida with Flor Diaz.  Both of them are such gems and could be the next big thing in WCS. 

I also had asked Alexis Garrish for a private at The Open when I had seen her at Midnight Madness.  I have seen her grow up on the scene, but in the last couple years, she just has found herself.  There is no other way for me to put it.  I have such an admiration for the dancer she is, the way she is smart with her inputs in the dance, her smooth body movement, the swing still shown in every syncopation.  Then, when I was referee judge at Midnight Madness, we had to do a review for one couple and she was one of the judges pulled in to do so.  The way she went about analyzing the movement sold me.  I trained for an hour with her and the superb Philippe and it was great.  So many insights and especially her helping me be me through the dance.  Thank you Alexis!

Then, the most amazing thing happened.  I was talking to Mia Pastor at Midnight Madness and she had mentioned she had been training with Alyenendrov Tsorokean. I said I wished I could train with him and she said to contact him. 

“Ok, yes, but I don’t have a partner.”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll train with you anyways.  I’ll put you guys in contact.”

We couldn’t figure out a time at MM, so he told me that he might be at The Open.  He ended up coming and I booked a lesson.  Ensued an hour and a half of the best time of my life.  He asked me what was the goal at the beginning and I said: “It’s been so long without a partner, I just want to train.  Throw everything and anything you want at me!”  And he did!  The only person I’ve ever trusted like this is Nelson.   Now add years of training, an insane understanding of body mechanics and lift physics, and an hour later I was in the air on one of his hand being turned like a pancake in the wind.  That’s with me never thinking I was any good at or for lift work.  Let me tell you, I was on a high. 

I danced every night until 5am, had great discussions with old and new friends, and really felt alive again.  Thank you to John for trusting me and having me at the event… my first year without competing!  People asked me if I missed doing routines.  What I really miss is training and creating.  The stress of putting a competitive routine on the floor?  Way less.  But being in a partnership that creates new vocabulary and is part of developing the scene and what it is becoming?   Yes, I miss that.

I decided to stay in California between The Open and TAP (as one should).  I had reached out to a few people I like to hang out with and everybody already had plans.  I was in a good place of learning to trust the universe and letting go, so I decided to stop looking and that whatever had to happen, was going to happen.  A few days before The Open, Cameo reaches out to me to know if I was interested in going to a cabin in the mountain with her, Jakub and Emeline.  Yes.  BC (before Covid), I use to travel a lot and be with my friends all the time.  And when it all went down, and the years after, I wondered if I imagined it all, that I thought we were friends, but it was only in my head.  As many things, I discovered that weekend that it is only because I disappear that I lose friends.  We had an amazing few days in a cabin, talking, re-inventing WCS, discussing how to stay relevant, what is our motive in the dance, drinking wine, eating, soaking in the hot tub.  I also found a chiropractor: I had messed up my neck while sleeping of all things (that’s when you know you’re not young anymore, not necessarily old, but not young).  She stayed with me for two hours, running all types of test, talking about her dog, giving me to fridge calendar from her practice, asking me about dance… mountain town indeed!

After this resourcing time, I got to TAP.  If you are passionate about WCS and you have never been, I highly suggest a combo of The Open and TAP once in your life.  The Open to get your eyes saturated with greatness and witness the unfolding of the future of WCS; TAP to get the training in to get to the best level you can… and a lot of partying!  I had the chance to catch Ben Morris and Benji Schwimmer for private lessons.  It is so interesting to see how every teacher’s approach is different.  I now have a long list of things to apply and practice and I am doing my best, but I do miss having a partner at my level.  People think we dance together all the time at our level, but it is far from the truth.  If you have a partner, you dance and practice with them a lot.  If you are a sole travelling teacher, mostly doing workshop weekends you dance with attendees and at events also.  That is why I like pole so much: it’s the only “partner” dance I can do with an available and consistent partner… I would say even above my level: the pole never makes a mistake!  I sat in in a few classes also, social danced until 5am every night again and was a complete wreck to catch my flight on Sunday morning.  Again, I had booked a terrible flight with a 7h layover in Vancouver, but I thought: let’s make it a great thing!  So I contacted a friend who came to pick me up, asked me what I wanted to do, brought me to walk and get some fresh air, then drove me to an awesome dinner place, and back to the airport.  It was definitely a plus on the journey.  I got back home exhausted, but happy.

One week home to get my shit in order, before leaving again.  I cleaned my apartment, did lots of laundry, and saw friends.  On the Friday, I drove to one of my best friend’s place.  He said it’s Christmas in my family and you’re invited.  Ok.  Now, you’ve got to understand that Christmas means different things to different people.  To me, it mostly means to get away, find an adoptive family, and enjoy.  It’s not really an experience of love and joy and warmth and gift giving with my family.  They had 20 Christmas trees in the house, trains, decorations, mountains of food, they fed me that night, and they invited me to lunch the next day.  Then my friends said it was gifts time.  I thought for the family.  No, for me also.  I don’t think I’ve ever received so many gifts in my life.  I had also been really sad while putting my Christmas decoration when I took my stocking out.  A stocking is something you buy when you’re in a relationship: you’re not going to stuff it yourself.  Anyway, they had a stocking for me also.  I was so positively overwhelmed, I wanted to cry.  I had to get up early the next day to get to a brunch, and they all got up to say goodbye, make me coffee, and send me off with leftovers.  Wow.

I got to Carignan for brunch with the girls in the morning.  We call us The OG of WCS, because we were dancing when there was approximately 12 people dancing in Montreal, so us and some guys.  My friend just got done building this gigantic house and is always happy to welcome us.  We try to meet together twice a year and do a tour of the table to hear everybody’s story and evolution from the last months.  I had to leave a bit early to get to the studio to do the first teacher training of the Studio Sonya Dance.  I am leaving for two and a half months in the winter and the studio has to run, so a lot has to be done in that direction (more on that in the next blog post), but long story short: I have an amazing group of new teachers and I am so excited to be working with them, and for them to work with my students!

Then I was leaving for Costa Rica.  Real vacations… with online work every day, but still!  The day prior to leaving, I did 12h of work.  At the airport and in the plane, 8h, just so I could feel a bit freer when I got there.  Costa Rica had been on my list for many years, but I didn’t have specific plans to go there.  A few months back, I was hired to teach in Vancouver.  It is really rare and long for me to feel like I have met a friend, but when we went to his cabin on an island and talked for eight hours straight, I realized I might have made a new friend.  We had so many “tabs” open that I casually said: I think we need a two weeks’ vacation to talk it through.   A few weeks later, he wrote me that he wanted to leave for Christmas and go to Costa Rica and asked if I was interested.  I mean… it was on my list, I was not going to be missing any work, I could buy the flight with points… yes!  We met in Liberia the first day, checked into an awesome Airbnb (the best of the trip) and ended up talking all night with wine and snacks.  The next day, we drove to La Fortuna to the Airbnb with the best view on the rain forest.  La Fortuna was beautiful with the waterfall, the swimming, the volcano, the hikes and the hot springs!  After a few days, it was time to drive to the coast, and honestly, I was ready to feel the sun on my skin.  We took our time to get to Tamarindo in a clean Airbnb and it started to feel like vacations!  We went to the beach every day, watch the sunset, walked around, visited the town’s shops, met a young Quebecer girl with a bagel shop, did a wine tasting, went to eat the best Spanish tapas I have ever had (and I am difficult, it is my favorite food on earth) in a dive bar bought by millionaires who brought us there, I had my nails done, we release turtles to the sea, we swam, we ate watermelon bought form a truck we hailed down by waving cash out of the window, we chilled at the pool, we had co-working sessions, we watched Ted Lasso, and so much more.  I am happy I said yes.  Yes to life, yes to a new, friend, yes to opportunities!  Thank you Chris!

And we are down to the last event of the year.  I’m not gonna lie, this one is a bit intense.  Trigger warning, feel free to stop reading here.

I drove down on the 31st and my GPS decided to stop working halfway there (you still have time to stop reading, this isn’t the triggering story).  And when I mean stop working is: I have roaming, but Google maps, Maps, Waze, nothing knows where I’m at and keeps sending me to a city I am not in or to an exit I’ve passed an hour ago.  Now, you have to understand that I am the type of person who puts the GPS to go to the grocery I’ve been at two hundred times that is besides my place (barely exaggerating); so Boston without a GPS wasn’t on my Bingo card for 2025.  Somehow I made it.  Through a toll road, I wasn’t supposed to be on, trying to get the guy at the booth to tell me where I actually am on the map to try and find my way.  It was -10 degrees Celsius and I was so stressed, I was sweating in my car.  I finally made it to the hotel.  What a weird hotel.  I mean, the ballroom space is really perfect for an event, but the hotel itself is actually an old motel and they put a roof on top of the whole thing (even the pool) and called it a hotel.  My room had no heating.  I called maintenance to make sure it wasn’t a stupid user error, but it wasn’t.  The guy told me the only thing he could do, and he’s not even supposed to, is bring a heater in.  Yes please, and extra blankets!  So I slept with the fear of burning the entire hotel down every night with that thing out of a seventies horror movie.

I dressed up to feel my best for the red carpet.  I met up with friends, we took pictures, I had a drink, the buffet had gluten-free options, it was perfect.  I then went to change into a nice outfit to do a demo with Arjay for the dinner show.  After that was done, I went to a room party with friends and changed back to my nice outfit to ring in the New Year in style.  I went back to some room party, changed again, drank, came back down to the ballroom and ended up somewhere in the hotel with a friend I’ve had for fourteen years.  Someone that had welcomed me in the community.  The talk got a bit sexual which was not completely out of character for that person, but then it took more and more of a tangent, which I think I should have seen the rest coming, but… this person started touching me without my consent.  I managed to take their hands off me, said something, but then was kind of frozen and stayed there.  I ended up leaving and going to bed.  But I was feeling so rattled, I couldn’t sleep and needed to talk to someone, so I knocked on the door in front of my room (I knew it was a woman I know from a city near Montreal).  We talked for a bit and I went to bed.  The next morning, I was not feeling good at all, and I went and talk with a good friend of mine.  She told me what I knew, but was not managing to do for myself: I should talk to the event director to make sure some actions are taken and it doesn’t happen to other people.  And I thought: I don’t know if I can do it for myself, but I can do it for other people.  I can do it for my friend who brings her beautiful 16 years old daughter at the event, I can do it for the women who are scared they are going to have repercussion because they are less in s situation of power.  So I wrote to Kristen, the even director, and told her I needed to talk right now in private.  She didn’t question me once, she listened and said she was going to take action.  She banned that person from the event and told me that if I needed anything, to leave, to do less assignment, that everything was ok.  Then I saw that person’s wife, who is a good friend of mine, and before I lost all courage, I went to her, brought her in front of her husband and said what happens.  He didn’t deny.  She was obviously shocked, but her reaction towards me told me everything I needed to know: we are friends.

I called Stephen after that, because he knows me so well, and he asked me what I wanted to do.  I said I want to leave, get the fuck out of here.  He said: leave.  I said: but there were so many things I was excited about this weekend.  Teaching a tricks and lifts workshop with Alyenendrov was on top of the list, teaching my workshops, dancing with my peers in a Champ JnJ… and I also didn’t want what happened to take that away from me.  So he said: maybe that is your answer.  Stay and feel like shit.  He knows me, he knows that I always try to put a face in public or I go hide my pain in a dark room.  Ouf… ok.   So I went out and saw a friend, they took me off the roaster that night for assignment, I hung out with more friends, I cried for hours, and finally went to bed.  I woke up with red and puffy eyes.  I taught all day, didn’t stop to think, and then judged all evening.  I didn’t social dance.  I didn’t social dance all weekend.  I couldn’t do anything else than try and manage myself.  A man would hold my shoulder from behind and I’d be like: WTF!  Then the next day, I felt sick, my body decided to reject everything that was put into it.  I did more things for me, things that make me feel good, without caring how it looked like, or what I should be doing.  I took a nap, then danced in the JnJ.  And I had fun.  I told myself there was no way I survived the weekend to not have fun.  Awards came, apparently fun wins.  Friends came to give me hugs, because apparently that is how you feel love: by letting people see you at your low.  I cried, I laughed, I hung out with more people I love and I went to bed happy.  Happy that I stood up for myself, happy to know I can use my voice, happy to know I stand in my power, happy to redeem myself to the 18 years old Sonya who didn’t speak up, happy to know I have people around me who love me and support me.  And fucking exhausted.  I’m exhausted.  I got home yesterday and thought I was going to collapse, so I’m trying to give myself grace through everything I have to do this month, before leaving for the trip of a lifetime.

I’ve been reflecting for a long time on how to measure progress in dance — in ways that go beyond competition results.

You could be State Champion of Alaska one weekend (perhaps because there were only two competitors, and the other one took a single WCS class), and then not make a Newcomer final the next weekend at a big event.

Your level hasn’t changed between the two events — not for better, not for worse. So what do you take away from that experience? Do you bring the results home and let them define you? Do you cling to your title and avoid competing again? Or is there perhaps a middle ground — a more balanced way to grow?

🌿 A gentle reminder

You do not have to compete in West Coast Swing. Competition is an optional activity connected to the dance you love.

It requires an investment of money, time, and emotional energy. If the results weigh so heavily that they make you lose joy in dancing, perhaps it’s time to pause and reflect.

You work hard during the week to afford your passions. Ask yourself:

“Did I start dancing to add more pressure, or to find release from it?”

If dancing was meant to bring lightness and joy, don’t let competition become a source of burden.

🌟 If you choose to compete

There are still many ways to approach it with meaning and growth.

Brené Brown once said:

“If it involves no risk, no uncertainty, and no exposure, there is no bravery.”

Competition asks for all three. It is exposure — standing before friends, judges, and strangers. It is uncertainty — you don’t know your partner, your song, or what the floor will feel like. And it is risk — emotional, personal, and social.

To compete is to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is an act of courage. So to every dancer who steps onto the floor — I commend you. Your bravery is seen.

🌸 Other ways to measure progress

• You competed for the first time. • You felt less stress than the last time you competed. • You represented yourself the best you could. • You handled an off-time partner with more ease. • You truly had fun — maybe for the first time. • You had even more fun than before. • You met someone new. • You made a friend in the lineup. • You received feedback from a judge that will help elevate your dance. • You got a video you’re proud to share with family and friends. • The photographer captured a photo you love — one that makes you smile every time you see it. • You felt proud of yourself.

All of these are forms of progress.

🕊 Final thought

For those who wish to continue competing but struggle when results become the only measure of worth — remember that your journey is broader, richer, and deeper than numbers or placements.

Your courage, your joy, and your growth — those are the real markers of success.

If you’d like, share in the comments what progress means to you in competition. Let’s celebrate every kind of bravery, together.

This blog is going to be softer on the travel side.  Sometimes, it’s good to just remember how good life is in all its forms.  Last time you read me, I just came back from a well-deserved, epic work/vacation trip.  I landed in Montreal in my new apartment, filled with boxes and a mattress on the floor.  The start of a new life.  Again.  I’ve had many of those so far.  Which is good because when I was young, I was already desperate trying to figure out how I would live all of the lifes I wanted to live… well, I’ve done well so far. ;-)

It feels like my first apartment although I’ve lived in plenty.  I think it’s because it came from me.  It’s not someone I know or me being nice to a landlord or having to fight my way through something: the girl wanted to leave her lease (she had moved here after a breakup and was now moving in with the new boyfriend… how serendipitous), the dates were perfect, the location was great, the price was… what it is for Montreal in 2025; so three times more expensive than the apartment I had before moving in with my partner just over a year ago.  But it’s mine.  It’s mine to fill how I want, to inhabit, to live, to create.  The last tenant left me her patio set, a barbecue, her couch and even clothing!  I told her I came with nothing but my personal items and a mattress (overly optimistic Sonya gave away all her stuff as she does every time she jumps in a relationship) and that anything she did not want, she could leave and I would sort through it.  So if you see me with pink clothes or something that is not my usual style: it was probably hers. Like this top:

I’ve already filled my space with so much joy, so much me.  It feels like I’ve been living here for a couple years.  I made myself a “mental health wall” with pictures of all the people I love, that make me feel good and great moments to remember.  In the last year, I think once a day, there has been someone who reminds me of something I did that I completely had forgotten about… so apparently I need reminders.  For the bad days, for when the light is dimmer, for when winter strikes.  I put portraits in my room of things I do that make me happy (pole, aerial, dance, nature, art…).  I did a housewarming party and people brought me beautiful plants (that are having a hard time right now with the change of season).  I got beautiful dishes, mugs, candles and I just made the space absolutely to my liking.  I am finally ready to have people over.

I also started a dance studio.  I had already been teaching in Montreal for the last two years since I’d been back, last year I started a couple monthly dances and practices, but I wanted to help develop wcs even more in the city and have a single location for all my offers.  I have been having a lot of demand to teach, but I cannot be everywhere at the same time, so having teachers work with me been amazing.  It admittedly has been a really intense two and a half months, setting everything up, administration, accounting, marketing… but I feel like I’m getting my head above water.  I’ll have to set up the winter semester soon which is going to be another big swing in and of itself.  But all and all, things have been going well and I’m happy every time I see people inhabit all the offers I have created and put them to life!

Being home for a couple months means having time to go see art!  Which is something I have been missing in my life.  I drove an hour and a half with a friend to a city nearby to see a circus show homage to Daniel Bélanger, one of my favorite Quebecer singer.  Outdoor shows are just the best for me: summer breeze, sun coming down, smell of fresh grass… if it was summer all year, I wouldn’t have any trouble staying in Montreal… I say that, but I’m sure I’d grow restless anyway at some point and want to roam around.  One of my goal for this year is to make it a trial year for myself: I activate everything that’s in my power to feel so well in Montreal that I don’t want to leave.  If it doesn’t work, I leave for good.  So far, I got caught at my own game because I don’t want to leave: I like my space, I like studio work, I like my students and the community I’m building, I like my friends, I like the activities I put in my schedule every week… but it’s not winter yet.  When I came back to Canada two years ago, my sine qua non condition was to leave minimum a month and up to three months every winter.  And I didn’t do it.  Well, the first year I had contracts which got me in and out and the winter was mild, so it was bearable, but last year, between the baby project that didn’t work as planned (to say the least) and the winter being horrendous (in my view, I’m sure some people enjoyed the snow), by February I was done.  Like every year.  So this year, I’m leaving.  Even if I don’t want to yet, I know by the time February is there, I’ll be done with it.  It being everything.  Believe me, the blog after that trip is going to be the most epic of them all.

I met with my energy work friends up north for a weekend and we meditated, did energy work, poker tarot and more for three days.  It felt rejuvenating and was highly needed.  Then came Summer Hummer.  I forget every time how much I miss it.  Being out there.  With everybody.  With my peers.  I used to do that every weekend for years.  I forget, people forget, people don’t even know I used to do that.  What a strange thing: to see people’s perception of you change with what they know.  I used to be top of the class when I was going through the education system.  Like top top.  I had 96 to 98% average and won highest ranked in my province and in the country amongst multiple prizes.  I was known for that, people would come to me for intellectual stuff.  Then I got bored, it wasn’t stimulating enough so I decided to dance.  I was not good, not coordinated.  Anyway, fast forward to years later, a good friend of mine, who’s only known me since I have been a dancer comes to my place and sees a Mensa book.  Automatically, he asks my roommate if it’s hers.  It wasn’t.  Seeing the surprise in his face when he realized it was mine is when I realized: people never really know you.  The full depth of you.  (That and the national competition they have every year in Germany and a group of dancers was struggling with a question, politely explained it to me to humour me when I asked and were utterly surprised when I solved it in 5m after they had tried for... a week? and asked other people.)  Maybe people who’ve been with me all my life like my father or my sister, but what if I meet someone now?  There is so much life behind: do you ever get to a place where someone knows the depth of you?  Anyway, all that to say, I can see now in the new dancers eyes: they know me as the nice Sonya, the good instructor, good dancer… but not to the level it used to be when I travelled every weekend.  Such an interesting experience, the human one.  So Summer Hummer was great, even as I was disappointed to not make finals in Champion.  Oh yes, it happens to all of us, no matter the level.  There is not much else to say about that, I wanted to mention it so you know that we’re all humans no matter where we stand. ;-)

Phil, Flore and I organized the Chalet WCS again this year, a cozy getaway, not too far from the city, at minimum cost, so dancers from the local communities can get to know each other, spend time, talk, dance and learn.  Every year fills my heart with joy (even if I was right smack in the middle of chaos with opening the studio this year and probably looked utterly exhausted).  At the end of the weekend, we filled one car and drove further north with three friends to see another circus show I had found out about a week prior.  They built a tower in the forest and hooked up circus apparatus inside of it.  We saw these amazing artists perform their acts for the last time of the summer as the summer was setting.

I had a weekend in a beautiful region of Quebec visiting the family of a dear friend of mine.  I had never met them in 12 years of friendship and after planning it for a year, we finally had dates that matched with my schedule which is opposite to most people.  A friend of mine came to stay at my place and created a mural on the wall of my bedroom.  I wanted to paint a wall.  To say: I am staying.  To have something special.  She is a sculptor and when I asked her to create something for me, she tried to say no, but her being ended up saying yes and creating what is even better than what I had envisioned and something that fits perfectly with me.

I dog sat for my ex partner for ten days which was a challenge schedule wise with the studio, not living in my apartment and going back and forth to take care and be with the dog, and it was also amazing to have more time with this little beast I grew so attached to and most likely won’t see much of anymore…  I gave two outdoors introduction classes for the end of the summer, to get people to know or at least witness WCS and try and get some people through the door.  I saw a comedy show, I learned how to create my own solid perfume, I trained, I started to do pole and aerial again, I met with friends, I had wine with a book on a terrace, I lived, loved, laughed.  Until I drove myself into the ground and got sick for a week.  I’m not even sure what I had except for my body saying: STOP.  You need a break and seven nights of twelve hours of sleep.

Montreal Westie Fest came around the corner, our best local event.  I topped my record for private lessons in a weekend: 19.  Sometimes people don’t understand where we’re at, what we do during the weekend of why we’re not dancing all night anymore: are they snob?  Do they not like to dance anymore?  I love to dance, but when I teach 19 hours of private (which is my choice, that is true, but I also need to pay my rent after all the expenses of the studio), 3 hours of workshop, judge 5 competitions, dance pro-am JnJ, the invitational, staff meeting, present awards, and I’m sure I’m forgetting many things… I did go dance on Saturday.  And I was so happy to be there and danced with people that I kept going, and going, and at some point, after the hug of the end of the dance, I would almost fall over, until someone who had been sitting there for a while asked me if I was dizzy and if I was ok.  I thought it was just an internal feeling.  I looked drunk.  I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol all weekend.  So yes, most of us still love to dance, most of us would love to dance more, but it is also our profession and we have to be alert to teach, judge and perform to the best of our abilities all weekend.  It was honestly easier for me when I did it every weekend, cause that was it.  Now it’s this most weekends, plus work all week, plus manage a studio, plus… I love it. ;-)

Last weekend, by a twist of event, I ended up with my sister and her three daughters in a chalet up north and it was amazing.  Not relaxing.  Bur really nice and I hope, great memories for the girls.  I have one weekend left at home before I start a long season of work and travels.   November, December and January are work weekends away as well as managing the studio and teaching, and February to April are going to be epic months of travel.  More to come…