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For the last six or seven months, I’d been toying with the idea of taking a dance class.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with my past, let’s just say that dance was once a very big part of my life.  I had once taught classes, choreographed not only pieces but full shows, and had danced professionally all over the world.  Although I stopped teaching and performing about fifteen years ago, I still kept my foot in the door with some occasional choreography or appearing in a commercial or friend’s video.  Fifteen years is a long time.

When a friend told me about an adult hip-hop class, I jumped at the chance to use some long-forgotten muscles but soon found that dance has changed a lot from the world I once lived in.  Let me explain.

The dance world I came from was a world of structure and discipline.  Your hair was pulled back in either a bun or ponytail, you wore form-fitting clothes so the instructor could see and correct your alignment, you wore dance shoes, and you arrived early so you could have your shoes on and be ready to start promptly.  Although the hip-hop classes that I had taught were more lax, the basic rules still applied.

The class I’d signed up for was more of an exercise class than a formal dance class, and I’d been warned that there was a short warmup, and then you would go straight to choreography.  There would be no across-the-floor section where you would work on turns, kicks, and leaps.  That was okay with me because I didn’t think my body was ready for leaps, and my extensions certainly weren’t what they used to be.

My friend and I signed up for the class two weeks ahead of time and, as soon as I’d signed up, I began to feel nervous.  A lot of the nervousness comes from the unexpected.  Maybe these people were all professional dancers.  Maybe I wouldn’t be able to remember the choreography.  Maybe I couldn’t keep up with the cardio.  Maybe they would laugh at me.  Every insecurity in the world set in.  To add to my worries, the day after I’d signed up for the class, my doctor told me no hiking or running until further testing could be completed.  Technically, this wasn’t climbing a mountain or running the miles I’d previously put in every morning, but I was pretty sure it exceeded the walking to which he’d limited me.  So I had an additional fear of my body failing me and, to make it worse, it could fail me in front of a group of strangers.

The day of the class, I was a mess.  I had to incorporate relaxing breathing exercises all day, including in the parking lot before entering the dance studio and a few times after I entered.  Gee, I don’t put pressure on myself at all, do I?  Ugh.

I was the first one there.  Most of the others arrived just a couple minutes before class started, including the instructor.  Right away, I realized that this class was much more loosey-goosey than I’d been used to.  Everyone wore whatever they wanted, be it loose or midriff.  Most of the ladies had their hair down, and there was not a dance shoe in the place, which was okay since I’d donated my dance shoes to a place in Michigan before I’d left…a move I’ve regretted ever since.

Staying with the loosey-goosey theme, the instructor, without a word, went to the front of the class and led us through some quick stretches.  Other than having nothing going on in the balance department, I did okay on the stretches.

Then came the choreography.  I’ve never felt that I picked up choreography quickly but, to my delight, the instructor taught small segments at a time and then repeated them many times before moving on.  To my disappointment, there were no counts.  Counts are a part of the structured world I came from.  Counts let me consistently learn the choreography before I make it my own.  Counts have always been my happy place.

Standing in the front row, I followed along as the instructor taught the choreography, sometimes with counts, sometimes without, and sometimes the same choreography had different counts than the previous time we went through it.  Oy, was I confused!

Having learned half the choreography — which, in my world, would be four counts of eight — went well.  Then the instructor added the music.  The movements started out on the counts in my mind, but then, by the end, it seemed the goal was to just do the movements as fast as you could, regardless of what the music was doing.  The only reason I know this is because there was a twenty-something superstar dancer next to me in the front row who seemed pretty confident about matching the movements to the music, so I just looked at her every time I got lost…which seemed to be often.

Then came the next three or four counts of eight (who really knows).  Again, the instructor was super good about doing a lot of repetition, so I felt reasonably comfortable with the choreography, it was just putting it to the music that was a challenge for me.  Again, not having counts, it seemed you just had to do the movements as fast as you could the farther we got into the choreography. 

After we learned the whole routine, the instructor pointed to me and told me I was doing a good job picking up the choreography, which was really nice since I was incorporating the “fake it until you make it” ideal.

Then came the performing.  Unlike my structured world, we would dance the combo through a few times to one song, and then the instructor would change the music to either a slower or faster song.  I’ve always learned choreo to one particular piece of music, so not only was this different for me, but I felt like I was flopping around trying to figure out which movements went with what beats.

At the end of the class, we had all worked up a good sweat, much to my doctor’s chagrin, and I’d survived my first dance class in fifteen-plus years.  The instructor walked past everyone else, high-fived me, and again told me I’d picked up the choreography really well before asking if it was my first class.  Oy, if she had to ask, I wasn’t the rock star I’d hoped to look like. I explained that it used to be my job, and she laughed, calling me a “cheater.”

All in all, it was a good experience that I’d spent way too much time getting myself worked up about.  It was fun to be in the front row again, and it was fun to see if my mind and body still remembered something that had once been such an integral part of my life but now seems like a past life.  Yes, I would try it again.  Yes, I might look for a similar class that uses counts.  Yes, I might browse around for a lyrical dance class.  No, I will not wear my hair down in a dance class.  Every girl has her limits.

May you all go back to your roots and spin into your destiny.