Finally, I’m  back in Moscow after a part-planned, part-unplanned prolonged stay at home in the UK over Christmas and New Year.  It’s good to be back in Moscow and reconnect with my training regime here, but it’s really very cold.

I must admit I was ready to fly back home in December.  The start to my final year had been relentless.  I had pushed myself very hard to prepare for the competition in Brussels in October which I wrote about here, adding many private lessons into my usual, very tough training programme, alongside the preparation in earnest for exams in April – and as a result the intensive training had really taken its toll on my body.    I, therefore, spent a lot of the holidays getting my feet and body back into shape with lots of physio and sports massages from my usual health support practices.  I also had treatment for injuries to my hips – which I’ll write more about in a later post.

The planned bit of my prolonged stay at home was due to the start of audition season with many companies now beginning to post auditions.  I was already well-prepared having sorted my audition video and photos (see below -photos by Ash Photography) over the summer, tweaking them following the October competition which provided me with additional video footage.  I started auditioning just before Christmas and during January.

I will continue as the year progresses; it will be tough to travel backwards and forwards to auditions as I’m preparing for exams and continuing to participate in the Academy’s programme of shows, not to mention the final graduation performance and graduation itself.  It’s also a very competitive field; with lots of graduates from this year looking for contracts plus all of those that have graduated in previous years and those that are looking for a move or transfer from short-term contracts to longer-term.  I’m not expecting it to be easy!

The unplanned bit of my prolonged stay at home was due to problems with my visa.  It’s a very long story which I won’t bore you with but involved being refused entry to my connecting flight at Munich, sleeping at the airport overnight, paying extortionate amounts for excess baggage, travelling to the Russian Embassy in London and finally getting back to Moscow three days later than originally planned – exhausted but relieved!  Phew!

So it’s really good to be back here to catch up with all my friends.  And I’m looking forwards to a very busy few months ahead.

If you’d like to follow my career as a professional classical dancer, go over to my Instagram page here.  Read on to find out more about my life at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy …