Jam & Cheese

After last weeks visit to a cheese fair that wasn't happening, My husband, Mum & I managed to actually visit the genuine Real Cheese Festival yesterday and we now have a fridge full of far too much cheese and very little else! The Festival was great as always but the whole weekend has been a little overshadowed by the grey skies and dampness that have accompanied the bank holiday.

As previously blogged we had a great Pole Jam at the Plymouth main studio. Tamar & I were joined by Miranda from Pole Affinity and Michaeala from Girls of Synergy / Britain's got talent fame. We worked hard, achieved a few new moves and earned some great new bruises too! Here is a short clip from our 2 hour jam;

On Saturday my husband and I decided to eat out at Plymouth eaterie Buffet City, we had seen a poster advertising an all you can eat buffet for £5.99 and thought it was worth sampling. OK, so I am a bit of a food snob and was worried about the existence of MSG in my food amongst other issues but I tried two plates of food nevertheless:

Plate number 1: Sweetcorn soup, Crispy Seaweed, fried rice (no boiled rice on offer unfortunately), Noodles and some mixed veg.
Plate number 2: Veg pancake roll, mixed veg, crispy seaweed, fried rice and 3 sauces - curry, sweet and sour and lemon.
The highlight of the meal for me was the amazing fresh Chinese tea which was simply gorgeous. As I tend not to eat beef or chicken there was very litle else for me to sample apart from the veg dishes but I was happy with the price tag of approx £7 for my two plates of veg, one dish of fruit salad and my delicious pot of green tea.

Well, the bank holiday is slowly drawing to a close so I will sign off for now to enjoy the rest of the day. I hope you have had a fabulous bank holiday despite the truly horrendous weather,

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Exciting times?

As you can see I am making up for the lack of blogging last week as well as enjoying the fact that I have a full staff team back in action at long last! I have lots of nice things to look forward to work wise although pre-competition nerves are already starting to take over my life. To add to the competition worry I seem to have lost all my strength over the past few days and am unable to do many of my normal tricks so today I resorted to playing on my gymnastic rings (see video above) to see if that would help in anyway. I put it down to over training so rested yesterday expecting to feel better today but no such luck. Perhaps I am coming down with something or my immune system is fighting something off? Whatever it is I hope the problem sorts itself out before next Saturday (5th September) qualifiers for the Pole Divas championships.

I am hoping that tomorrows pole jam may sort me out although I have a feeling that if my muscles are feeling under the weather already a 3 hour pole jam is not going to make matters any better!

On the subject of pole dancing, as I usually am, Pantera has postponed her pending UK tour and will now be coming over in 2010 instead of 2010. Click here for my recent PDC article on the amazing pole dancer that is Pantera (see picture below)
More news soon,

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Cheese & Chav fighting

This Sunday is really the Real Cheese festival in Tavistock Town hall. Apparently the page I viewed on the What's on South West guide was for last years event! So this Sunday I will be able to stock up on lots of cheeses & Ale, not the healthiest of purchases but very tasty nevertheless.

A little bit of the latest news from the UK fitness industry starting with the latest controversial sport- Chav fighting. The new craze is the brainchild of London independent gym GymBox. As you can imagine there were quite a few complaints about the chav fighting classes as well as the controversial advertising. One leaflet given out by the gym said "The Louder they grunt, the harder they fall. Why hone your skills on punch bags ... when you can deck some chavs", one flyer described the new sport as "Martial Arts with Burberry belts and a fist full of sovereign rings".

GymBox is renowned for it's controversial classes which include bitch boxing and Boob Aerobics! Despite the complaints the advertising standards agency said that they could see that all the promotional material was tongue in cheek and was not meant to be taken seriously. The gym owners have argued that despite the advertising the classes are actually about teaching individuals discipline and respect and that the once individuals start training they soon start to change their attitudes.

I can understand that some people would find the entire concept of chav fighting classes to be offensive however I think that we do need new ways to reach youngsters who go out street fighting and if this sort of concept gets them into a gym environment then it has to be a good thing!

At the art of dance we are hoping to branch out into new areas of development although chav fighting is not within our plans- details to follow!

Off to teach now and gain some more bruises to add to my growing collection of green, black and purple beauties!

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Cheeseless......

I can't believe it is over a week since I last blogged. The days have been whizzing past so quickly and I still don't seem to be getting everything done. I would have blogged yesterday but the What's On South West guide advised me that there was a Real Cheese Festival in Tavistock so I had dashed off, with my Husband & Mum, to stock up on cheese only to find that the Cheese Festival is next weekend. Gutted! Still waiting for a response from the What's On guide as to why they still have the wrong dates on their website!!

Luckily on our drive to Tavistock we saw the adverts for the Real Ale Festival at the Royal Oak in Meavy so our trip out was not completley wasted! We managed to stock up on local fresh free range eggs to make up for the lack of cheese!

Talking of Tavistock I have agreed to perform at the pending Tavisrock and Blues Festival on September 19th at the Wharf. I will be performing on stage with AC/DC tribute band Angus and dancing to the classic rock tune 'Back in Black'. The art of dance will be promoting through the day and the event promises to be a great one with a fab line up. The 10 hour event costs just £8 in advance. You can use the link above to contact the box office to get tickets although art of dance students can get discounted tickets direct from me - just e-mail sam@theartofdance.co.uk to get your cheap tickets.

In the past week the art of dance has seen several changes including the start of our eagerly awaited Burlesque classes with our Burlesque babes Georgina Gale and Miss Amelia B. My staff team is back up to full strength with Rosanna finally back after illness, Jo back from her holidays & Nixi back doing Flexibility classes, it is so great to have everyone back.

We also have an exciting new director who will help form our Community Interest Venture which is set to be very exciting - more news to follow on the C.I.C and the new director - and a new PR company who are going to help the art of dance with it's expansion projects. Unfortunately the new venture involves tedious amounts of paperwork hence the lack of blogging.

My practice for Pole Divas has not been going very well at all. I still cant find a piece of music that I am happy dancing to and my strength seems to change from day to day with one day being ridiculously strong and the next being pathetically weak! Note to self - must drink less alcohol overt the next week to aid my fitness! Hopefully Fridays pole jam with Miranda from Pole Affinity, Michaela of Britain's got talent & Girls of synergy fame & Emily from Emily's Vertical Art will get my confidence back up.

Anyway will try to blog again tomorrow with all the stuff I have been saving up for you!

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Pictures and new

Apologies for the lack of blogging recently but I have been teaching a lot as well as painting (much less fun). Anyway the second Plymouth studio is finally completed and opened on Thursday with it's first yoga session. The Burlesque lessons should start this week but I hope to blog more about that later. Keep an eye on Georgina Gale's and Miss Amelia B's blogs for more details too.

A quick date for your diary - December 17th - Myself and the art of dance team have been invited to open Plymouth's biggest Christmas party at Oceana. The event hopes to raise a huge amount of money for St Luke's Hospice - more details to follow.

If you haven't been checking out the pole dance community site then you will have missed the news reports on Britain's youngest pole dancing instructor. Jess from JLN fitness is proving to be a great teacher despite her young age, click here for the news report from the Bolton News and click here for the PDC feature on Jess. I wish Jess every success with her business and think it is great to see such an enterprising young lady. I must also thank Jess for the beautiful bouquet of flowers she sent me for helping her with her planning application (picture at top of blog of me admiring my flowers!)

So, as I have not been blogging as much as normal I seem to have a backlog of photos to share with you so here goes:

Let's start with my husbands first attempt at making Bouillabaisse, I have never tasted anything quite so divine, the texture, taste and colour were just perfect so I am hoping my husband will be making another bouillabaisse very soon!My culinary delights have not stopped with Bouillabaisse as my good friend Chris has been kind enough to provide me, my husband and Mum with two free lobster meals at the Waterfront - picture of me below checking out the St Austell Tribute outside the Waterfront.
Aside from teaching, painting and eating I have spent a little time spoiling my menagerie of birds, I made some new houses for the Quail (see picture below of Amber checking out his nearly finished home.)
Now for any of you budding gardeners out there who like to grow sunflowers you may be able to help me out (if you live locally of course!). My Cockatiels and Kakarikis are particularly fond of sunflower seeds. Most gardeners remove the sunflower heads as they stop flowering and this is when they are perfect for birds to eat. Rather than just throwing the heads away my kindly neighbour Pete has been keeping me stocked up with sunflower heads saving me a fortune in bird food and providing a delicacy for my birds.
Well no more writing for now as I have to dash out so have a great Sunday. Some controversy to follow soon.....

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

More Pole Dance Controversy

Click here for the article I have just written for the Pole Dance Community on the recent controversy surrounding pole dancing at the Singapore National Day.

Much more controversy and fitness news to follow. Of out now to a surprise birthday party and then will be fishing this afternoon in the glorious sunshine,

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Pole stuff - a quick update

Well, it is only Tuesday and already the week is turning into a very interesting one, there is so much happening with both the art of dance and the pole dance community that I am struggling to balance my responsibilities. However, The flooring in my second Plymouth studio is now laid and looking lovely and the first yoga session is scheduled for Thursday 13th August, the lesson will be taught by Claire Nash who is a fabulous teacher. I will blog later about the other stuff going on in the second studio which is available for hire if you are a local dance teacher looking for space??

Last week I filmed a few funny videos for the PDC site to promote some of the products, here is one of them;


Since I last blogged I have entered the Pole Divas championships and will be taking part in the qualifying heats in Bristol so I need to make sure I get some serious practice in over the next 3 weeks.

Apologies to my lovely students who endured my evil spinning pole sessions yesterday, I know some of the ladies left bruised, battered and feeling rather nauseous but trust me they were not the only ones. Both the insides of my elbows and the backs of my knees have bruises, I have also have mildly aching shoulders which does not bode well for the final stages of ceiling painting today! Warning to my Thursday students that I may be whipping the same session out of the bag so be prepared for new bruises!

Off to hang mirrors - very exciting,

Stay Healthy,

Sam x

Tragedy

As I read of one tragedy the phone rang to inform of another, a good friend of many years had been found dead. I can't really say any more than that at the moment but his death has come as a real shock. The phone call was a difficult one not just because of Matt's death but as the call came from close friend, Rich, who had all too often had the job of reporting death to friends and family. I am not really in the mood to write much more but will try to blog again ASAP.

Sam x