Empire: A Night Inside The Spiegeltent

 

Last night I had the opportunity to see a show inside the Spiegeltent. What is a Spiegeltent? Imagine a century old lavish art deco tent where the inside walls are adorned in mirrors. Sounds gorgeous doesnt it?

My husband and I were married inside a Spiegeltent last year during the Adelaide Fringe Festival. It has now become our tradition to hunt down a show whenever our path crosses with the tent. It's a wonderful way to celebrate and remember our unique wedding day.

Lucky for us a Spiegeltent always visits our home town every summer. We've been blessed this year with two visits so immediately bought tickets once we found out about the new show called Empire. Flown in from New York with rave reviews it was just too tempting a show to not go. The show is hard to characterise as it is a merging of comedy, cabaret, circus, vaudeville and burlesque.



For the entire show I was held in a state of wonder. The cast of Empire push the limits of their strong and limber bodies. I was well and truly hooked when during the first act the room was flooded with a cascade of bubbles.

I highly recommend if you get the chance to grab some tickets to Empire if you get the chance. It'll be haunting my day dreams for a while to come.

How to Get Better At Roller Derby Part 2

Earlier this year I wrote about how to get better at roller derby. Considering the rules of the sport and the interpretation of those rules are constantly evolving its easy to be quickly phased out of the game if you don't push yourself to improve. Hopefully I can give you some inspiration to step up your game.

People say practice makes perfect and in Roller Derby it's also true.  There is no other way to get better at the game. If like my league you only get a few opportunities to train each week don't waste your time when on skates.  To seriously improve you must practice with the same intensity as on game day. Guns a blazing! Each jam will only ever go for 2 minutes so you should push yourself to skate faster, jump around, duck and contort your body into fluid unblockable shapes.

Im a huge fan of messing around on your wheels. Jumping. Street skates. Walking on your edges. Spins. Jump twirls. Cart wheels. Dancing. All of these things are super fun and they massively improve your balance and agility skills without you even knowing. I came back one summer able to transition after spending my time spinning around and twirling in the off-season.

One skill that seems to be super important (and often gets overlooked) is being able to change your speed instantly. Befriend your wheel edges. Use your toe stops for a burst of speed. Being able to juggle your speed will keep you a moment ahead of the opposition, able to drop back instantly to help a jammer or even burst through a pack.

To learn a new skill and be able to automatically execute it during a bout takes a lot of practice. Its not just going to magically happen in your next bout. Force yourself to trial new ideas in jams at training. Its the best place to improve your technique. Don't hate on yourself if  it's not working. I learnt a long time ago that just before you nail something new you will feel super awkward and fall over a lot. Falling over shows you are pushing your limits and once you adjust you will soon get better. You are meant to hit the concrete, get knocked out of bounds and sent to the penalty box when trying something new so no self pity. In no time you'll be automatically doing that new move on track.

Finally let your team mates know what you are up to. If you feel yourself stalling and your body just can't figure out what your brain keeps telling it to do enlist a friend or team mate to watch your technique. They might be able to see what your doing wrong!

So get out there. Happy skating!

Photo taken on my recent adventures to Rollercon 2013.