My Mythicality: Unleash a Signature Dance Move
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I’ve always adored dancing! My favorite movies are musicals...Singing in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers are stupendous! My favorite actor is Gene Kelly. My favorite actress is Judy Garland. When I dance I feel like I’m flying. Let me tell you a little about my “dancing” past…Please remember that an adoration for dance does not give you a talent for it.
When I was little I took tap, jazz and ballet for a few years.
When I got in high school I took tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, clogging and pointe.
I was also on the dance line/guard in the band. There was a lot of interpretive/Broadway style dancing in this gig. During this time, I had the chance to dance on national television. Once, as the Mississippi River in the Orange Bowl Parade in Miami and once as a giant snowflake in the State Street Parade in Chicago.
In college, I took a summer’s worth of ballroom dancing which was both exhilarating and frustrating at the same time. The regular lessons were a bit vexing because you had to dance with everyone and I had, still have, the tendency to take over when my partner was confused. In fact, that was the major critique my instructor had for me. I can’t always be in control. (That’s a great bit of life advice.) The private lesson was fantastic. Obviously, the instructor was incredibly talented and we whirled around the floor. It was my dream MGM moment. I felt like Ginger!
Now, that we are all up to speed, last summer I talked Meg into taking a ballet class with me. I had not danced in over a decade and figured this would be a fun little class to do once a week. I swear I sweat more in ballet than I do in workout classes but I’ve also seen huge improvements. (Sidenote: Ballet becomes a high impact sport after 30!)
For the first few months I was embarrassed by how foolish I looked. We were in class with some of the advanced students and I vaguely felt like the hippo ballerina from Fantasia. I did everything in my power NOT to look in the mirrors. (I also prayed that I had not been this horrific in my younger days.)
I’m so fortunate to have a teacher that is a lovely and gracefully woman who treats us as if we were going to Ballet Mag not like the hot messes we most often are. She calls us her girls, which I love, because it makes me feel young. The older we get the more we notice our mistakes and wobbling fat and lack of flexibility. Mrs. Lynn always threatens to cover the mirrors so we can’t see ourselves. She says we need to dance and feel like her three-year-olds…carefree… whirling… flying!
Now as I dance, I’m not perfect or even beautiful but I’ve grown confident…not in my talent, because I don’t necessarily have any, but I have grown confident in my creativity, my movements and my abilities to learn and grow…even after 30. I love that at least once a week I can feel like a three-year-old. For that hour, I don’t have to worry about bills or lesson plans or world news. For that one hour, I am the star of my own stage and that is pretty mythical!
(Amazon)
