Nostalgia is For Geeks...

Weird title, I know, but I felt the need to theme my title specifically to my weekend and well, what a better way to do it then with a lyric line from one of Gaga's songs? 

"I've overheard your theory, 'Nostalgia is for geeks'

I guess sir, if you say so, some of us just like to read"

You see, I like Lady Gaga as much as the next person, er dancer, although I am not a huge fan of hers, I respect and appreciate her music and enjoy her performances. She, like Michael Jackson, is a phenomenal performer! I would just die to see one of her live shows! She is such a freak, and in such a beautiful way. You have to keep reading if you want to know why I am talking Gaga so much lol! 

Anyways this weekend, I was given the most amazing experiences ever for my job! I teach dance and gymnastics at our local YMCA and now that we are under new management in our department, we took advantage and invited a famous gymnast to come train me and three other teachers. It was so cool! Miss Kacey is from YMCA Toledo, Ohio and is on the board of USA Gymnastics. She helped write alot of their training manuals and pretty much designed the whole gymnastics program in Toledo. She is pretty much the greatest lol. We were able to train six hours with her and have completely redeveloped our gymnastics program and our Rock, Tumble, Roll (baby gymnastics and creative movement) program. Thanks so much Kacey!

After training with Kacey, I had another training set up with my old dance studio for my dance program. If you remember earlier this summer, I trained with Ambrose Respicio, Theo Ivey, Tessandra Chavez and Taryn Struck with the Diversity Dance Summer Intensive. I was also supposed to take classes from Kevin Frey, but he had to cancel so that he could perform in the MTV VMAs with Miss Lady Gaga. Yes, you heard me correctly, Kevin Frey is Lady Gaga's main and favorite back-up dancer! He is so amazing, I have been such a fan of his for about a year now. I was so excited when I heard that he was still coming back to give the Diversity girls an exclusive dance workshop, something I just HAD to attend. I texted the directors of Diversity and they gave me permission to join in on their advanced class. I was so excited!

Here he is with the beautiful gal herself!!!

Oh my word, Kevin's class was sooooooooooooo hard! Its been probably five years since I have danced in the advanced level and his choreography was so rapid and quick, I could barely keep up. I took class with Aunt April for the first time ever, I think. She totally rocked the choreo so much better then I did lol, I was so out of shape for advanced choreography! But I did take so many wonderful notes, including "be free, but be focused" and "think while you are moving, don't allow your brain to shut off!" but my notes were quite damp and hard to read by the end of class. We were sweating so much in that studio room, the mirrors started to fog up too! Kevin was quite proud of us, and he loved how we handled the choreography. I am so blessed to be able to take classes from both Miss Kacey and Mister Kevin, they are both gods in the dance and gymnastics world!

I am not worthy!!!!!! ;)

They both really inspired me individually again this weekend, I desperately needed that. I am still so raw and emotional over the whole wrongful eviction, it was hard to pull myself out of that for class. But when I was in training, I was Miss Jillian the teacher. I was treated as an equal and my opinions and thoughts were heard. They both gave me some valuable teaching tools to take back to my kids, and Kevin's class pushed me to my fullest potential. Honestly, I did not even think once about our situation during either training, and that in itself is a beautiful thing! Thank you so very much, Kacey and Kevin!  To say that I am blessed to be in the presence of you two is an understatement. You are both so amazing, I cannot wait to work with you two again! I love you both!

I did not think to get a photo with Kacey, darn I am kicking myself now about that lol, but I did manage a photo with Kevin. Here it is!

I cannot wait to go to my gymnastics and hip hop classes this week to share all the awesome tools with them. I will inspire them like crazy this week! Yes!