DANCE my first love! Thanks @chelseymariexo
Dance: Where do I begin?
I started dancing as a little girl. Like a lot of girls I wanted the tutu and the pink shoes. I had the saturday morning classes. I loved to Can Can and I LOVED TO TWIRL!!!
As I got a little older…I think about age 11, I turned into a complete tomboy. Especially during puberty where I covered myself in sweatshirts, flannel shorts from limited too and doc martins. I was also convinced that I was good at sports so I would be an official tomboy (I wasn’t very good). So my self esteem was low. I gained weight and I watched a lot of TV on the couch eating nutrageous candy bars.
Until my mother said that I HAD to get active somehow. So I chose dance. I grew up watching Madonna, Michael Jackson, and the Fly Girls. I ONLY wanted to take hip hop classes because that was cool and I didn’t have to wear a body hugging leotard and tights.
I was sooo upset that my mother turned down my request. She told me that the only way I can take a hip hop class was if I took ballet as well. ”Ballet is the foundation of all dance” she lectured.
“Sure Ok, whatever mom” I thought.
Well, I went ahead and gave ballet a shot…and totally cried a few times after a few classes at the sight of my awkward body stuffed into pink tights and a black and leotard forced to look into a mirror during the whole class. I mean watching yourself leap and turn with limited training was almost laughable. Most of the girls hadn’t reached puberty yet so they were soooo skinny, perfect and adorable.
Weeks past and I took class consistently a few times a week after school. My instructor Myles Marsden started to see potential in me and paid me in compliments and encouragement. I began to lose weight. I began to look forward to class. I began to love it! The feeling of expressing myself through music in my body gave me more self esteem than anything I had ever experienced.
I got obsessed! Dance became my world. I read Dance Magazine. stAfter school, I would bike from school to class. I would dance for 3 hours a day. Within two years I was dancing on pointe and choreographing my own numbers. Not long after that I was able to perform with the San Francisco ballet in the Nutcracker.
At about 15 I started to get a little more serious about singing and my band. Dance sort of fell by the wayside but I carried it into show choir in High school and I competed with the school’s dance team…
Sadly I haven’t danced seriously in more than a decade but I need to fulfill my love for it has been showing up more and more. Dance is one of the best therapies for anyone, really. Recently, I was lucky enough to sit down with one of China’s master healers Shen Wu and one of his cures for arthritis is to shut your eyes, play music that moves you and dance freely. Many of his patients have benefited through this practice of dance.
When my father passed away, I filled up my days with dance classes and it was the best therapy I could have asked for. I expressed my pain and sadness in movement. I was able to interpret what I could not say in words…and I was able to release!
So Friends…Time to dance. Any style! Sign up for a class. Tango! Break! Tap! Pirouette! Leap! Gyrate:) Or just dance in your room to your favorite song. Get into your body. You’ll feel amazing:)
