Why do physie as an adult?

Fitness

Music and choreography

Disciplines us (for me it has motivated me to stretch regularly)

We can wear whatever

Choose to compete or do it for the fun and fitness

Great role modelling for our children

Getting involved with something with our daughters

Flexibility and mobility (improving or maintaining it as we get older is important)

Meet new like-minded people

Pick up where you left off (if you're an ex physie girl)

All ages and experiences, size and shapes are welcome

Gives us 'me' time

My lesson journal: February 2019

I am back to physie for my fourth year which means I've progressed into the intermediate category. On arrival at my first lesson I learnt that over 40 registered ladies were attending my club this year. This is an incredible enrolment and a testament to the passion and effort from my teacher, clubmates and volunteers to build this wonderful club.

Lesson 1:

Warming up our bodies and brains included walking, lunging and marching in a (very) large circle. Then we learnt the travelling step in the warm-up routine. We start with learning a travelling step every year because travelling steps are always included in warm-up. Five lines gathered at the back of the hall and we learnt the step firstly with our feet, then added our arms. We also learnt the first few steps of 'exercises' and soon after class was over.

Lesson 2: 

We started with a circuit warm-up. Nine stations were set up including toe rises, lunges, wall push-ups and hip bridges. Then we all stood at a marker on the floor to revise and learn new moves for warm-up. Afterwards, we learnt the first couple of counts for swing. I'm guessing it won't be long before my teacher introduces bean bags for us to feel the weightiness in our arms (I hope that we have enough, we're the largest class now). A few more positions were discovered for exercises and then we revised all three routines at the end of class.

P.S. New format this year! All blog posts will be quick reads limited to 250 words so that you can get on with life and practising more physie :) 

2019! Back to physie challenge - Day 5

Today's the final day of the back to physie challenge and I encourage you to organise, sort and label your physie paraphernalia from previous years.

Organise - Keep all your items together in a display folder or special box/hanger/sash for medals.
Sort - Arrange items based on date in reverse chronological order or sort them into categories such as interclubs, zones, nationals. Keep the program booklets together its competition number and certificate.
Label - On the back of your medals and competition numbers write the date and event so that you can remember where you earnt your medals. Read labelling physie keepsakes for more tips.

2019! Back to physie challenge - Day 4

Follow Phoebe Collins, former Grand Champion, in her article about stretching and achieving the splits. While the splits is a staple in junior and senior floordrill routines each year, ladies do not need to perform the splits.
Find the article here.


Answers for day 2 challenge - naming physie positions:
1. Attention
2. Top stand
3. Yard
4. Oblique
5. Flight
6. Reach
7. Trunk forward bend
8. Lunge
9. Drag
10. Lateral bend

2019! Back to physie challenge - Day 3

Today's challenge is to march with the 2016 Ladies Grand Finalists.

Marching is the first impression that you present to judges. It demonstrates posture, pointed toes, turn out, musicality and shoulder flexibility. Marches for ladies are consistently around 100 beats per minute. 

Read "March into March" to see how I grasped the concept of marching in physie and turning corners.

2019! Back to physie challenge - Day 2

Today's challenge is to revise 10 basic positions of physie.

Execute the positions to the best of your ability with the clues given below. Answers of positions will be released on day 4 of the challenge. I recommend checking alignment and aesthetics in the mirror. Remember your physie smile. :)

Have a look at Physie 101's post for help and visual guidance.

1. Starts with the letter A, toes turned out, heels together, fingers down
2. Fingertips touching on the top of your head, elbows out
3. Starts with Y, arms sideways and parallel to floor
4. Arms form a V shape upwards, palms up
5. Palms down, fingertips level with head, straight arms outwards and slightly upwards
6. Arms stretching forwards, parallel to the floor, palms inwards
7. Three words, bending torso forwards and parallel to ground
8. Starts with L, front knee bent and both feet turned out
9. Works your shoulder flexibility, arms are pulled behind body diagonally downwards
10. Stretches your lateral muscles, usually done while hands are in 'adoration' or 'top stand

2019! Back to physie challenge - Day 1

I am ready to go back for a fresh, new season of physie in 2019.
In this seasonal series, I will be posting challenges every day for the next week to prepare and revise physie essentials.

Sara from Inspired Physiotherapy demonstrates quad exercises to allow physie girls/ladies to straighten their knees especially in floordrill. It's been a while (over three months) since I've consciously done physie so this is a great revision. 

My lesson journal: May/June

My recent physie sessions have been filled with innovative, memorable and effective approaches, so I'd like to share some of them with you.

We held beanbags in each hand to feel the 'swing'. The slight weight at the end of our arms enabled for the ebb and flow desired in the swinging routine. Afterwards without the beanbags, we were still able to mimic the heaviness.

Top stands were mastered against a wall to ensure that our back, elbows, shoulders and head were in line with each other. We then applied this activity to the lateral bends with top stand in the 'exercises' routine.

Learning from our peers is one of the most effective ways of realising what works and what doesn't. We partnered up and one lady observed while the other danced. After observing our partner, we gave them some constructive feedback on style and positions.

Different songs with slower tempos were utilised in order for us to deliberately execute positions in warm up. Due to this, we were not able to rely on lyrics/word painting or listening to musical cues.

Earlier this week, I attended my last class before our annual practice competition. The practice competition is a non-competitive event where we dance with our peers and get to watch girls and ladies from all the different age groups present their work. I'm looking forward using my physie smile and remembering all the steps this weekend.

It's getting closer to competition season, here are some stories you may like:

Interview: First practice competition

Practice makes progress

5 words for 5 routines

My lesson journal: April 2018

Last week was my twelfth lesson of the year! Where did all that time go? I have a feeling that it's going to be time to perform these routines very soon.

Lesson journal 30/04/2018

As always, our teacher likes to start the class with marching. Then we then ran through all our routines although we were still missing some moves from 'advanced'.

I know all the steps of the warm-up routine but the transition between the 16-count sequences is still unfamiliar and awkward to me compared to the choreography of the last two years' routines. With exercises, I think that its repetitive nature and regimented positions make it the easiest to learn. Floordrill is also very positions-based but the view from the floor obstructs peripheral vision. Swing and advanced are least familiar to me and sometimes the moves get blurred between the two because of both their swinging, flowing and free-moving nature.

We learnt the remainder of the choreography for advanced. Again, I am having trouble with remembering swing and advanced at home. I can remember small parts but can't remember preceding and subsequent moves.

Then we worked on the techniques of turn-out and lateral bends. My teacher's innovation was to have two dots on her inner thighs near the knee. Laying on the ground, she showed the class how the dots were revealed when the whole of the hips and legs were correctly turned-out. In pairs, we worked on our position of the week the 'lateral bend' checking that our partner's hips were still and their back not caving in.



For more tips and exercises on goal setting, progress tracking, learning routines and inspiration, check out the self-improvement blog series. 

Spell it out: BjP's newest challenge

Physie girls and ladies from the Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture may have seen the latest workout challenge. Basically, you spell your name/club and each letter has a corresponding task. It takes about 2 minutes of preparation time to write the letters and their corresponding 'challenge', then you are ready to exercise.  

Last Sunday, I spelt my name out. I endured:

• 80 squats 
• 50 jumping jacks (star jumps)
• at least 3 minutes of wall sit 
• & a few more challenges

On Wednesday, I spelt "physical":

• 80 star jumps
• 30 burpees 
• 10 crunches 
• arm circles, squats, wall sit

Yesterday, I spelt "culture":

• 3 minutes of wall sit
• 15 push-ups
• squats (inevitably) 
• arm circles

All these challenges took me no longer than 20 minutes, but ensure you are adequately warmed up beforehand. I found that the arm circles helped my shoulder flexibility and was part of the 'swing' routine. Many of the challenges also improved my core strength. I'm going to continue this week with the same sets of exercises and then adding an extra day by spelling my club's name.

Other blog posts you may enjoy: Tracking your progress | Practice makes progress | SMART goals

My lesson journal: February 2018

It's the end of February and my classes have already been back for a month! Today, I'll share with you what I've learnt in this week's lesson.

26/02/18

Marching
- put band on left ankle, this is the leading foot
- brushing the foot from the ball until the toes flick up to point
- left foot on the down/heavy/prominent beat of music

Warm-up routine
- revised
- added a few extra steps
- isolated the arm movements from the leg movements
- then put together arms/legs

Advanced routine
- learnt the first few counts

Floordrill routine
- we were shown a couple of additional moves
- learnt from peripheral vision as mostly lying down

Exercises routine
- routine uses a lot of mirroring on reverse side
- revised a few times, but didn't learn new counts as lesson was nearly over

Skills learnt:
- multitasking, learning arms/legs/together
- flexibility
- core strength (especially the 'crunch' in floordrill)

To do before my next lesson:
- Visualise: draw a series of stick figures to remind myself of some of the routines.
- Practise the routines that I can remember and won't mislearn eg. exercises.
- Work on interchangeable skills eg. positions, turnout, facial expression
- Train my abdominal muscles - crunches will help me in floordrill.

For more tips and exercises on goal setting, progress tracking, learning routines and inspiration, check out the self-improvement blog series.

Countdown to competition season

Physie-goers all around the country are now gearing up for competition season. Towards the end of July until September, there are competitions to prepare girls and ladies for the zone championships, these include interclubs and club competitions. Interclubs as the name suggests are between clubs and dancers may only enter into two (BjP association, others might differ). Club competitions are intra-club and give an opportunity for the club community to see each other dance.

Here are just a few things that I have learnt:

• Impulse - one of the hardest manoeuvres to execute gracefully. The movement has to be fluid and it works the abdominal muscles. This move has been included in the 'floordrill' and 'advanced' routines. 
• Toe rises require a lot of balance and should be practised with a chair/barre.
• I have learnt that in marching, the thumb should be slightly bent to ensure that it doesn't create a gap with the rest of the fingers.
• All positions should be done in front of a mirror so that you know that it creates the desired lines and illusions. Sometimes you think that you are making a straight line when in fact it does not appear that way.

Attire

• My made-to-order leotard has not arrived yet, it'll turn up later this month. 
• A club jacket (optional) makes sure that make-up does not transfer onto your leotard, keeps you covered up, provides warmth and certainly a sense of belonging. 
• The BjP ladies' championships are not done on a lit stage but rather a sports centre. This means that you needn't go ridiculous with make-up. Remember, BjP also bans certain make-up products for juniors but there are no restrictions for seniors and ladies. 
• Tan, well I'll see about this one. Physie in this era has banned the tan for juniors and is optional for seniors and ladies. Dancers all have their individual complexion and BjP promotes positive body-image. 

I've saved the most important point last and that is to take care of your health.

• Have a healthy, nutritious and balanced diet which will provide your body with physie fuel. 
• Stay hydrated! Always have a drink bottle at every workout and avoid fizzy drinks for physie.