My love affair with dancing

So one of my favorite hobbies is dancing.

I took ballet lessons when I was about six years old, and all I remember is:
1) I only stuck with it a year,
2) in practice they'd make us sit back-to-back and then try to stand up (my partner and I beasted!), and we'd also point and flex and make "pretty Cinderella feet" and "ugly stepsister feet," respectively,
3) I had a super epic tutu for performance, and
4) I drank an Orange Fanta right before dress rehearsal and really had to pee the whole time.

My mom tells me that I didn't like my teacher at all and that's why I stopped lessons. That must be the reason why, because I've continued to love dancing, and every time I see a ballet performance (usually the Nutcracker at Christmas time...) I come home spinning and twirling and determined that someday I'll learn pointe.

I'm realistic though. I know I'm not terribly flexible, and basically too old to learn ballet - especially pointe. But I can still do jazz, modern, and hip hop (and clubbing, but that's pretty straightforward, as seen here). Those are the ones I've mostly stuck with. I started choreographing when I was, oh, just a wee little thing (probably late elementary school or so). In seventh grade I started taking lessons at a very laid-back studio, and I was in a class of about 16 girls, all but three of whom I already knew. I absolutely loved it. I took lessons there from seventh - twelfth grade, and during those six years I had four different teachers, all of whom taught with very different and unique styles. I ended up doing a couple years of jazz, a couple of modern, and one year that leaned more towards hip hop.

I have to confess, it was never really a hip hop class though. My teacher told us from the beginning that she could envision the moves but couldn't dance them herself, so we tried to learn the motions while she awkward-white-girl danced them and then told us how to compensate for her whiteness. Now, yes, I'm white too, but I've been told that I don't dance like it. That's one of my favorite compliments to receive ^-^ Anyway, senior year I started dancing with my friend T, and we came up with this really awesome thing we call "puppeting." I'm the puppet and he's the puppeteer and he "attaches strings" to my arms, and, well, you can envision the rest. It's awesome. Maybe I'll put up a video at some point.

So I've been away at college for a year, and I haven't had much opportunity to dance. I've definitely lost some skills. But my friend Bradley really really wants to film a dance video. And I really really want to as well. He just showed me this video today, and he says he's got some ideas for it. So basically I've got to start practicing again. Fingers crossed we can follow through!

I really love dancing. So much. It's so freeing and relaxing and energizing and exhausting and basically I'd rather dance than walk. My parents can tell when I'm in a good mood because I spin around the kitchen while I'm getting food out of the fridge or glasses from the cabinets, etc. I just dance all the time. I can't help it.

So, dear readers, I encourage you to embrace your inner dancer. I don't really care how your dancing looks; I actually have mad respect for awkward dancers who know they're awkward and dance anyway. So do it. I'll love you. And give you props.