On Dancing and Exercise

I've been running since last January, fueled by anger and sadness from a broken heart. I hate running but an old friend once told me that if you were going to be in pain, it might as well be physical pain (ie: grueling exercise). At least make something good come out of all that angst. She claimed that the summer her 1st boyfriend broke up with her was the summer in which she had the best abs ever from all the situps she did.

I'm getting sick of running - not sure if I'm bored from that particular form of exercise or if I'm out of emotional steam these days. I need something more interactive again, like tennis, or dancing or kickboxing, or even rock wall climbing. I took cardio kickboxing for three years and was in the best shape of my life back then, until I sprained my knee snowboarding. Then the instructor left and I left my job in that area.

Enter Brazilian fit dancing. That lasted another 3 years until work got too busy and the instructor left - back to Brazil. This class - I fell in love with. Great music, a flamboyantly ambiguously gay instructor in tiny shorts yelling out instructions I could never understand, and people of all ages just having fun and dancing as horribly as I did. Three years and I never got the hang of it. I was still the dork facing the wrong direction or sometimes just standing there because I couldn't match a left kick with a right arm swing. And yet, I didn't care.

I suck at dancing and I miss it so. The past year, the only dancing I've done is at weddings and recently at a bachelorette party in Phoenix. On Friday night, met up with me@co, dd, Sly and that whole crew at Par Avion after a couple of us saw the musical Curtains in downtown. I had every intention of dancing, but the exhaustion of the end of the work week, the annoying seizure inducing strobe light on the dance floor, the half naked man flailing about under the strobe light, and the curiosity of talking to me@co's new Irish lad kept me hanging in the loungey back room. Plus, Sly and CK were being accosted by some drunk man in their booth at the front of the bar, telling them to "feel his pecs." Hiding in the back room with the others was for the best.

On Saturday morning, after months of missing the class for some reason or another, I dragged myself to the Y to try out belly dancing. Unfortunately, the instructor was out sick. Fortunately, one of the other dance instructors, a former fellow student in the Brazilian dance class of 2 years ago, was subbing in and teaching... what else? Brazilian dance class! Wheeeeeee!!!! So much fun and I suck as badly as I did before.