I'm listening to JC's 'Build my World' which is really beautiful, and I just looked outside the window at the sun streaming in and turning the palm tree out in the garden to fronds of white light, and I was just really happy, and content. It was beautiful moment.
Right now I feel like exploring some I was talking to Hen about the other day, about dance and Anna-san. What I was explaining to Hen was that I've realized that my love for dance, and my love of Anna-san are connected, in a really intimate way. Anna-san is dance for me.
What got me thinking about this was, talking to my Oniichan, we were talking about how Anna-san never gets out (according to to Tomoko-san), and that made me think of her in her house. Choreographing. And that's the image that made me really happy. Anna-san mentioned in her Message from Anna one time about people who were the embodiment of dance (Namie was of of them), and for me, she herself is kind of like that. Her dancing is one of the things that I love about her. And dance is one of the things that keeps me closest to her. Practicing the wave how she taught me, or those back stretches....I feel connected to her in a really intimate way. I love dance because I love Anna-san, and I love Anna-san because I love dance. There are really one and the same for me. I don't know. It's really hard to explain. So I think I'll stop trying for now.

 
Today I went met up with not only Yayoi-san, but Nori-chan, who happened to be with her. We talked about English (I taught them how to say ‘I have split ends’), and whatnot, and we missed our stop, so we had to go back, but then we got onto the next two trains as right before the doors closed, so we actually had great timing.
We had a lot of time when we got to the Rapport, so we just sat and chatted in the changing room.
When we got to the lesson room, the pop kids were coming out. A few of them said hello to me, and the tiny little girl(?) that had danced with me before that one class came up and tugged on my hand with a big smile, and so I waved and held hands with her for a little bit. She’s so adorable, and I couldn’t believe she remembered me!
When we were all in the room, Anna-san said with a big enthusiastic smile, ‘After exercises, it’s time to work on more choreography!’, and informed us that we would be doing the continuation of Yaguden today.
Speaking of Anna-san….oh my god….I could just die. She was wearing a skin tight black tank top, showing that strip of belly, and her baggy black windpants. I don’t know if she really has lost weight, or what, but…she has a lot bigger chest than I though. But anyway, she is just…so gorgeous. Her shoulders are broad, and her arms are nicely muscled (you only really notice them when she dances), and she has the most beautiful hourglass figure, especially from the back; her back slopes in a perfect triangular slope to her waist, which is so small, especially seen from the side, and her waist slopes gently into her hips, in a way that reminds me of Li-chan, actually. What I mean is she has hips, but they that slope is still gentle enough that they have a really alluring pseudo-boyishnish to them. Today I was captivated by her hips during the hip isolation exercise. I know that sounds pretty sexual, but it wasn’t. It was definitely in an ‘awe over how much control she has over her body’ kind of thing, and let me just say that I love Anna-san’s dancer body. Moving a bit into the sexual bit….it is so sexy. The way she looks, the way she moves…she has to be the sexiest person I’ve ever seen. She’s perfect. I mean, my ideal. She’s everything. It’s everything about her. The way she moves, with so much ease, how absolutely cool she looks when she’s doing the choreographed dance, how GOOD she is. How the same joy that you feel from her during freestyle beats or battles is just radiating off her in waves. Her expressions. Her concentrating expression when she’s working out the choreography, her elated smiles, her excited smiles, her proud smiles, her joyful smiles. Everything.
Also, I would just like to mention that Anna-san is very sexual. In a completely unconscious, completely unsexual way. She’s just so natural, and fit, and so beautiful. There was a moment when I was looking at her face, imagining how beautiful it would look while making love. Ok. Hmm…I think I’m getting too personal for my journal. That’s really ironic. I’m going to move on now. Very quickly. Everyone forget your read that last bit.
Is it a lost cause to try to convince people that I’m still pure? Because I am. My thoughts are very pure, and not dirty. I’m serious. Even though I can’t explain this.
I’m not sure if the low point of class was when I was seized by a devilish urge to sing ‘Mr. USA’, when Anna-san was doing karate like poses, or when after class, I caught sight of her, and her mother, and thought to her okaasan, ‘Hi, I want to f—k your daughter.’ Hmm. Actually I thin it was definitely the latter. Since I’m not supposed to think those things. Although it amused me at the time. Or maybe it was the moment when I wanted to give her one of my rings, when I went back to America, but this little thought process ending in incredulous laughter in my head, when I remembered that the only rings I wear that I can give her would be one of my gold bands, which look just like wedding bands. So, so much for that. LOL
So anyway, to finally talk about the actual lesson, which I will say in my defense is harder when it’s all practicing choreography, we spent the whole class on Yagyuden, which I still love. First we showed the few people who hadn’t learning it what it was, and then Anna-san put them into their respective groups, and we all helped teach them. I even helped teach the girl next to me who hadn’t learned it before. But right after I did, Anna-san came over to our group to teach them, so we all relearned it with her. I noticed that when we relearned the group part on the floor where I’d hurt myself, Anna-san now gave everyone the same explaination about balance, etc that she gave me on Wed when I’d come up to her after class, which made me happy, because I’m having an influence on the class, and also because she really took what I said seriously, and incorporated it into the lesson so it didn’t happen to other people. So after people had it all down pretty well, practiced a few times with the music.
Then we all practiced amongst ourselves, and I figured out with help from Uchida-san and Tomoko-san what I was doing wrong to bruise my knee on the floor part. Meanwhile, Anna-san was involved in a long talk with Namio, and the two of them were apparently planning out the next part of the dance together.
Then Anna-san taught us the next part of the dance. In the next part there is a part where we have to make up about 3 poses on our own. Anna-san showed us a couple examples, and they were all so cool, very active and fighter-like, and made me remember that she has a black belt in Karate from the Super Monkeys. She told us to try to move as much as we could, crouch down, and whatnot. Then we all tried to think up poses while Namio thought up the next poses we would all do together. For the first time in a long time, I felt embaressed. I didn’t want to try to make poses in case they were stupid looking. It was a real shock to feel that way. To be just glued to the spot with embaressment, and I didn’t like it one bit. I think it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve done battle, or beat, but it was really dismaying.
The part after the poses which Namio taught us (which, as always, we understood better when Anna-san explained them to us.), Anna-san taught us the next part, where we have to move backwards as if ‘the enemy’ is coming, and she did an impression of that whole backing up while looking around defensively which is ‘in movies a lot, you know?’. LOL It was actually very cool, and it reminded me of Takeshi’s dance from the BB live I saw in Yokohama so long ago. It is also very hard to do, since it’s that smooth sliding which kind of uses your whole body in a really fluid motion which is so Actor’s-like to me. The girl from last time who was a student at Yokohama Actor’s practiced that, and I could see the Actor’s in her movements.
So we practiced that for a while, and then we put the whole of the dance we’ve done so far together, and practiced that a couple times. Anna-san told everyone, with a big smile, not to worry, because we still had about 5 months left. Then she llaughed, and said something I didn’t quite understand about the classroom being all quite and like dusk, and how all you could hear was people’s exhausted breathing (which she did an impression of, ‘Haa haa haa’), and everyone laughed. Then we all bowed deep and echoed Anna-san’s Otsukaresama!!
After class Tomoko-san and I commented on Anna-san’s okaasan’s orange back, which she said is her lucky color (in Feng Shui, Anna-san explained), and Anna-san’s Okaasan said it was unusual for me to wear a skirt, and I said ‘hai’. Anna-san didn’t say anything though, until Tomoko-san and I left, saying Otsukaresama!! To which she said with a bright smile ‘Otsukare!!’

 
Yesterday was the first Wednesday Hyper. I met up with Yayoi-san again in Yokohama, and we took the train to ShinYoko together, and then walked to the Rapport.
On the way, I told her about how that girl that performed after Mystic at the club, Asuka, was in my Popteen. And Yayoi-san told me about how at the second night they went to see Wakane and Namichin (aka Mystic), a lot of the audience wasn’t really into it, and she thought that their music was maybe more Pop, or something, or at least that they were more focused on singing, and dancing while they sung, than with just dancing, which is what the people that come to clubs are more used to. And how we were all used to Actors, so we we able to think it was really cool, but that Actors definitely has its own style, and whatnot, so you kind of have to be used to it. It was all kind of confusing, partially because I think my definition of Pop, being an American, is different than hers. But I did agree with her that Actors definitely has a distinct style all its own.
Then we hung out in the changing room in the Rapport, and talked to the chuugakusei (Yohko thanked me for wishing her happy birthday on the BBS, which was very cute.), and the OLs. We talked a bit about the BBS, and the chuugakusei agreed with me that it’s kind of been taken over by the Pop kids moms and dads, and that we can’t follow their conversations at all, and so we just post completely different topics by ourselves, but they never really get picked up on. And how the only people that reply to them are sometimes Anna-san (when she happens to see your post), and sometimes one of the moms or dads.
Then we went out into the hall to wait for the Pop Class to be over. The Pop class before Hyper yesterday was the Pro Class, who I saw for the first time. They were really good. Which I guess should be obvious. And there was Anna-san, back from seeing her new nephew in Aomori, helping the Pop kids, watching with a huge smile on her face. She looked so alive and happy.
Ai-chan came for the first time since I got back from the US, it was nice to see her again. Tano-chan made me stretch with her as we waited, because both of us had hurt the back of our thighs last class. LOL
Then Pop class was over, and we went in the lesson room. Anna-san called us over, and said that we had no time to chat today. She said that we would do exercises, and then we’d practice the dances, and then for the last 15 minutes we’d work on group dances.
So we did exercises, first, and I could actually see myself in the mirror again. Of course most of the time I watched Anna-san while I was doing the exercises which is partially because I still don’t really remember the order of what we do when, and partially because I just like to watch her. LOL I guess it just shows how good a dancer she is that she looks beautiful, and really cool doing exercises. It’s amazing how much she can isolate her body, like, her hips and her torso and all of that. It all looks so effortless. I mean, the wave is part of our exercises…
So after exercises were over, we split into our groups for Yagyuden, and practiced amongst ourselves. Emi-chan and I hugged, very tightly, just for fun, and she said ‘A-chan, now I know you’re really strong’. And then we practiced some more, and helped Namio teach the new girl (at least she was new to me, apparently she was from Hyper when it was in Yokohama Actors). So we all practiced, and Anna-san went over parts of the dance with us, and Emi-chan and I chatted, and hugged more. We did a lot of dancing, practicing to the music over and over, this class, but it was so much fun. The song is so cool, and the dance is so cool, and Anna-san was practicing with us, and watching with such an alive, excited expression on her face, like she was so happy and excited to be in this stage, to be planning and making something like this, and watch it all coming together, like this is something that is really fulfilling for her. It was so wonderful to watch. I can’t really explain it, but I had the feeling that I’d finally woken up to the full joy of dance, not only free style, but just the whole process, practicing, and the choreography, and the physicality of it, trying to make your body do what you want it to, and everyone working together, and Anna-san there. Just, the whole thing. Everything. It just made me really happy. It was so much fun. Even when I hurt my lower side back doing the floor routine, and couldn’t do one of the moves anymore because of it, and my back hurt for the whole rest of the lesson, and it still hurts a bit now. Even that was fun, ok, well not fun, but enjoyable, because it was just part of the whole process of dancing. Even though it hurt a lot. I didn’t mind. Speaking of the floor part of our dance, there’s one move, where we kind of sweep/slide forward, with your torso forward and your shoulders back, that’s just sooo Actors-y to me.
Then we had about 15 minutes left, and she asked what we would like to do now, get together and talk about the group dances, or practice Miami, or what. She went through the options, and had us raise our hands, but it was all really undecisive, since there were a few people for each one, so we eneded up practicing Maimi, and Anna-san went through it once again, slowly, for us all. There’s one part, in the beginning, where we do that jazz box, and for some reason that was really neat to me, because I actually remember learning that in Jazz Class back in 5th grade, and it reminded me that Anna-san’s two skills in her profile when she was an idol in the ‘80s were ‘English, and Jazz Dance’, which makes me wonder if she’s actually jazz trained, from before Actor’s developed it’s own style of dancing and teaching, and that she could probably do the jazz box in her sleep, because it’s like the most basics of the basics.
Miami is another great song, with a great dance, but my own grasp of it is so unsure and I just kind of wing it all, and it makes me annoyed, so hopefully I’ll get a better grasp of the choreography.
After, Anna-san told us that we’d work on group dances next Wed class, and told people who didn’t know what group they were in to come up and check with her. So up I went.
I am in the ‘tanoshii’ group, which was written up in Anna-san’s notebook as ‘fun’. I noticed that the groups names were all in English. (Cool, Fun, Funny, etc), which was interesting. Then I explained that I hurt myself during the floor part of the dance. I showed her the part when I hurt myself, and she asked how I did it. So I showed her, and she got on the floor next to me, and did the move with me. She said that the way that I was doing it, my center of balance was in the middle, and the only way to support yourself in that position is two both hands. The way you have to do it when you support yourself with only one hand is to lean your body over to that side, and when you do this, it uses your back muscles a lot. As she talked, she showed me, and I copied her. As we were still in the position, and she was explaining how much you used your back muscles then, she said ‘Sawatte mite’ (‘Touch it.’). So I touched my own back, and she shook her head. ‘Touch mine.’ So I leaned over and lay my hand on her back. ‘You see how tight it is?’. I wasn’t sure if I could tell, but I was just so happy to be touching her back, that I just nodded. She went on to explain, ‘If your back muscles are weak, then this will make them hurt. You need to condition them.’ I asked how one went about conditioning their back muscles (since I hadn’t really even thought about the fact that one has back muscles until mine were killing me. LOL) So Anna-san obligingly got down on the ground even further (lying on her stomach), and showed me a back muscle strengthening exercise. This was a bit awkward for a moment, as I watched her do the exercise, and wondered 1) exactly what she was doing, and 2) whether I was expected to get on the floor and try it, because I didn’ t really know how, and didn’t want to make a fool of myself trying. I guess she sensed she needed to explain in words (I had a real sense she had been trying not to, because she didn’t want to use English), and finally she explained that it as ‘sit ups no gyaku’ (like the opposite of sit ups), which 1) helped me understand, and 2) made me very very happy, because she said the word ‘sit ups’ in her Native Speaker!English. If only she’d speak more English, I wouldn’t have to get so excited over just one word. LOL But anyway, the whole exchange made me very happy, and I told her that I would do those exercises, and thanked her, and she smiled sweetly at me.
Then I walked to the station with Tomoko-san, who confided to me that she’s getting married next fall! (But she can’t tell anyone else, because Yohko is a student at her school, and she can’t let the school know yet). I was very very happy for her. She said, ‘Even though I look so young, I am 25, so I figured it was time.’ We mused that Anna-san will be jealous. Tomoko-san joked that Anna-san might reveal that she had a boyfriend and has secretly been married. But I said that Anna-san doesn’t seem to have a boyfriend, because she’s definitely the type that would boast about it (I’m going on a date with my darling!’ etc), and Tomoko-san agreed that she didn’t seem to have the time for a boyfriend, and that she never went out, and hence never had the chance to meet anyone, to which I added that she also lived with her mother. I mentioned that the only place she could hope to meet someone was at LoveJunx, but Tomoko-san said there was no one really her age, and plus, we agreed it’d be weird if she went out with a student.
Anyway, I learned two things this class. The first was the amaxing experience of hard choreographed dancing, of putting that all together and everything, and just how much fun it is.
And the second was that I love every single thing about Anna-san. Every single expression, every movement, everything. But maybe I knew this all before.