Addicted to dancing

The best thing I’ve done for myself so far this year is to take up dancing. Hands down.

Looking back to even November and December, I was struggling just to get up in the morning and go to work. All sorts of drama at work was making me question my own value professionally and personally.

I took up dancing in January and felt like the slouchy kid in the back of the classroom for the first two months. Even now, I’m not very good, but I’m relaxed enough to joke around or stand in the front row in belly dance. I’m not doing the hip-hop recital tomorrow, but that’s because my technique just isn’t there yet.

Regardless, I’ve found that dancing has become a new source of inspiration to get my life in even better shape. I was willing to take the plunge and change jobs, I’ve taken up LARPing with the local Camarilla group, and I’m more motivated to get somewhere with my writing.

When I started dance, my boss said, “You know, sometimes when life is seeming crappy and I’m restless, I don’t need to quit the things I don’t like. I just need to pick up something new.” He was right.

One thing I’ve found in the *mumblesomething* years since graduating high school is that I love being a jock. I love running, lifting weights, playing frisbee, dancing, etc. I don’t even need a very rigid structure, although I keep one for weight lifting. If I don’t want to run, I play frisbee. I’m lousy enough at it that poor Greg and I do a whole lot of running in the process. If I can’t rope Greg into frisbee, then I’ll practice dancing for an hour. I love having a bunch of very physical activities to lose myself in.

All of this came to mind because I’m starting a new belly dance class tonight called “Shimmies”. A shimmy is very fast hip shake that’s a typical move seen in belly dancing. Here’s some advanced shimmying (not my instructor):

It’s an hour-long class, and Nayna said she’s going to get us from being able to shimmy for 8 minutes to shimmying for 25 minutes, including traveling and layering. I expect to either not be able to walk or to be stuck in shimmy-mode tomorrow morning. I’m so excited.

Off to class!