A Bit About Me
While you, my members get to share in little parts of my daily life I realised this week that I haven't really shared much about my background. Now I know some of you are my dear friends, and others I have been teaching for a number of years, so I apologise if this week's blog is nothing new for you!
Let's start from the beginning. I am Jane Pascoe, I am 37 and am a born and bred Nelsonian. I am married to Alastair (my married name is actually Gregory but I have built up my reputation based around my name so decided to keep it for work). We live in Nelson, New Zealand in the suburb of Stoke with our 3 babies: Austin; 5, Mackenzie; 2, and Hunter the dog; 12. Alastair and I have been together since we were 17, which was around the time that I completed my first dance teaching degree status. I have been dancing since I was 7. I learnt jazz for the first wee while and picked up ballet when I was 14, which is really late in the dance world! I was really keen to become a teacher and my teacher/mentor/dear friend Peta Spooner told me then and there when I met her that it wasn't going to happen (at a career level) unless I picked up ballet. I started the next day.
I went to every class available and 6 months later purchased my first pair of pointe shoes! I had a wonderful couple of years while still at school attending dance classes every day, performing, and sitting countless amounts of examinations. When I was 17 I was given the opportunity to teach all the modern jazz classes in the studio and continued to do so until my son Austin was born 15 years later. In that time I also taught ballet and other styles and opened my own studios, first in Brightwater, then Upper Moutere and later moved those classes to Richmond. My wee studio is now based in Stoke. At the time that I left high school dance was very new in the school curriculum and schools were unsure how to tackle it. It was wonderful timing for me as I was approached to teach dance units at a number of primary and secondary schools. I also assisted Peta on the NMIT Fitness and Exercise Science course, and Art Council Nelson's Performing Arts Course, both tertiary level courses. Life was busy and very full! When I was 20 I was successful when applying for the role of Performance Arts Coordinator at Nayland College. I worked there part-time for 81/2 years juggling that very full role with my dancing commitments. It was an amazing place to work and I made friends for life and wonderful industry contacts. In 2010 I had finally finished my dance teaching exams, achieving my Fellowship degrees in Modern Jazz and Classical Ballet, amongst lower levels in a number of subjects including TheatreCraft, Tap, Freestyle and Dance Exercise.
That year I began my yoga teacher training through Power Living Australia because I can't not be learning! I'd only done yoga a handful of times but felt like it would be complimentary to my dancing and a new challenge. I had my mind blown1 It was an incredibly transformative experience and that 200 hr training really only scratched the surface for me. Since then I have done sequencing, yin yoga, anatomical, TCM, pregnancy, paddleboard yoga, kids and teen yoga training and much more. Yoga is such a powerful tool and I feel privileged to share it with so many, I see it as a life long study of which I have a desire to share my learnings far and wide.
My yoga and dance classes were pretty well established at this point and I was teaching around 25 classes a week around the district. I literally didn't have time to work at Nayland College anymore so sadly resigned in 2012. I loved working there but was ready to take the plunge and become a full-time dance and yoga teacher. Scary! I thought I really needed to add one more element to my teaching repertoire as I had a wee bit of time on my hands in the mornings and we can't have that can we, ha! After a bit of research and online learning, I found and learnt the barre concept which was just kicking off overseas. I was one of 2 or 3 others in NZ doing it at the time. I took to it like a duck to water and my students loved the dance-inspired workout. It was so much easier than teaching adults dance as they never had to remember any sequences and it didn't matter if they didn't always make it to classes. Barre in Nelson was born and I am so grateful to have some of my first students from back then here with me online, all in different parts of the world!
I jumped into many advanced teacher trainings over these few years (and got married, got a puppy and bought a house, went to Europe for 6 weeks amongst other incredible experiences!) including certifying as a prenatal, paddleboard, and kids yoga instructor, I also spent some time at Te Whaea (NZ School of Dance) learning the art of teaching contemporary dance. I travelled to Byron Bay first to do a 70-hour yoga sequencing retreat that was paired with a module focussed on the hips, I then went back and did my yin yoga teacher training a year later.
And then... along came Austin! 9P 2O of deliciousness! I had a great pregnancy and was able to teach right up to 38 weeks. He was due at New years so I thought "perfect, I'll teach till the end of term four!" Hindsight - Madness!! What an incredibly rewarding and exhausting phase of our life having kids has been. I went back to teaching a wee bit when Austin was 6 weeks old but was lucky that my dear friend Charlotte covered my dance classes so I only had to teach one preschool class per week. I slowly increased my yoga and barre classes as I was ready and took back my dance classes from the 2nd term. It was a crazy year of sleepless night and blurry classes but I got through it and managed to keep my classes ticking over with the support of many. We carried on like that for two years with the support of our angel and great friend Emma who cared for Austin (and Hunter!). At that time Alastair started his own business in forestry (land clearance after logging) which involved incredibly long hours. He is such a hard worker and we're very proud of him! We travelled back to Europe to visit my sister and her family in Switzerland which was incredible! Austin was 18 months old and travelled like a champ.
Soon after we discovered that I was pregnant again, miss Mackenzie was on her way! She was born in July 2018 and to be honest - even though I knew what I was in for in many ways - I was looking forward to having a break from teaching and just being at home. Well, that lasted about 4 months! Again - madness. I went back to teaching in the 4th term and the juggle was real! Alongside being a family of 4 a real highlight of that first year with Mackenzie was beginning my retreats journey. I taught at my first women's wellness retreat at Appleby House with the incredible Rosie and Paula team and also had a Bali retreat later that year with my glorious friend Tina. Mackenzie got quite sick that year just before her first birthday and we ended up in the Life Flight plane to Starship Hospital in Auckland for 2 weeks. She contracted influenza, bronchiolitis and another nasty virus. One of her wee lungs collapsed and she was desperately unwell. After spending a week intubated in ICU we had another week on the ward before coming home. It was a scary experience but we were so well looked after, yoga definitely helped me at this time to remain calm throughout and trusted the process.
I looked around at all these people in the hospital with their children and thought "if I had to be somewhere like here longterm, how would I be able to continue to share my classes?" Many people have asked me for videos of my classes over the years or said they wished they could still come to my classes when they moved away. It had been a massive block for me, I didn't know where to start so I just put it in the too-hard basket!
Then... COVID.
So I started. I just jumped on Facebook live and started teaching classes! 2 weeks later my wonderful friend Juli in Germany and I had a new website ready and my Facebook live classes went into a private group for members who paid a small monthly fee. From there I went into strategy mode with the help from some incredible industry specialists and my weekly emails were born! The plan was always to do these for 10-12 months to create enough content for an online portal for yet another new website, and I'm proud to say I'm nearly there! Soon my website will be ready and you all will have every class to date in one place. And you won't have to pay by PayPal if you don't want to, ha! I'm excited to launch this, and I'm so grateful that you're here with me!
I am looking forward to this next chapter of my online business, with my family, and YOU by my side. There will be a few changes in the next couple of months, all for the better of course! I'll keep you posted every step of the way.
If you're still reading - well done, haha! And thank you for being here, it really means so much!
Kindest,
Jane xo