Like a Boss.

Last night, I got the courage to go back to dance class. It was my first time back since May 4th, if you remember my hip hop nightmare.  (I feel like this is a common theme for me--going BACK to dance class. I know that taking time off from class is a part of life, and since I am doing it for my mental and physical self and not a career, I should never feel bad when I stop going. But everytime I go BACK, I feel like it is this big momentus obstacle I need to conquer.)  I have been feeling better about my knee, and seeing a recent performance of Hubbard Street lit the fire under my ass again and made getting back to class sort of an obsession. I looked at the class schedule, and saw that my favorite teacher was still teaching Jazz II on Thursdays at 6:30. My body moves most naturally to jazz/ lyrical, so I thought it would be a safer choice than hiphop. Also, less jumping. What made it better is that my friend Brandi wanted to go with me, so it was nice to have a friend there and not go it alone.

It was so great being back! The teacher was so sweet and supportive and kept checking in to make sure that I wasn't hurting during the warmups and routines. It's obvious to me that I've been out of class a long time--I've lost a lot of my leg strength and my feet need some more stretching out, but I am so happy to say that my body did better than I expected it to! It felt great to just dig in and GO THERE. My body stretched and sweated and hurt, and the hard core muscle and ab work at the beginning felt amazing. When it came time to do the floor work, things got really tricky, but it felt good just to MOVE. There were only 5 people in class, too, so that was nice--lots of space to be yourself.

I've never been a technically strong dancer. There is a lot that I cannot do. Where my strength lies as a dancer is my ability to pick up choreography very quickly and understand the counts and rhythm of things. There's something about timing, movement and rhythm to me that just sort of clicks in my head (similarly, when I look at something such as number sequences or words, even if my brain doesn't consciously log the information at that point, I will later be able to replicate what it is that I saw. It makes certain puzzle games very easy for me.) The combination that we did is one that the class had worked on last week, but when we started, the teacher looked at me and said "you'll pick it up quickly," so that was nice validation. The routine was super hard, and there was stuff I couldn't do (but I couldn't have been able to do them pre-injury either), but there was a lot that I COULD do. Especially this weird split crawling weird thing we had to do. My God, it felt amazing. And my knee held up like a champ!

Afterwards, I told the teach that I had been scared to come back, but that knowing I was going to have him as a teacher was my safety net. He said my timing was good--he'd hadn't taught in 2 months and had just come back. It was meant for me to be back!  I can't wait to go again next week.

Then, this morning, exhausted as a mofo, I got up at 5:50am and went for a run with Andrea. I don't know how far we ran (2ish miles? a little less?) in 26:30. It was haaaard, but I am so glad we did it.

I am not going to be able to move tomorrow.

I am really proud of myself for my perserverance and for getting back into class. I need to dance. I need to move. It's the thing that comes more naturally to me. Why do I ever deny myself?