I’m just the way I’m supposed to be

How has it been a month since I last posted? I fail at this blogging thing.

Life has been… busy. Late nights, long days at work, compounded by dance classes. But oh, I’m loving it. I took a break from salsa, as the night my salsa classes were on conflicted with a zouk class I wanted to take. I am SO GLAD that I did.

A classmate originally recommended that I hop studios. He’d heard that S&T were good, tried their classes, and sang their praises. So, I summoned up some courage, emailed them, joined in the next set of classes. That was two months ago.

They’re fantastic as teachers. I have learned so much. Not just moves, but about zouk as a dance style of it’s own. Learning how to employ musicality, learning how to follow leads better, learning how to balance myself properly in cambres, learning how to rely on my partner… gaining confidence.

Last weekend, Adilio Porto ran workshops in Auckland. He’s one of, if not the, world’s best. It says something about how much I’ve changed, the last two years, that I went at all. And the workshops were utterly fantastic. I showed a picture of his impromptu performance at the bar on Thursday night to Colitis. “It looks like he’s wrestling with siamese twins?”

Come to think of it, it says a lot about how I’ve changed in the last two years that I go to bars Thursday nights by myself to dance. Well, I’m not alone, there are plenty of familiar faces and regular partners, but, you know.

Warming up, I was dancing with a complete stranger, to Sara Bareilles’ Gravity. There’s a real sense of … achievement? excitement? glee? pleasure? dancing with someone who is confident enough to play with the musicality of a track. Leading into a boomerang something always brings me back to you, dropping me into a deep cambre you’re keeping me down.

It’s hard to explain why I love this so much. It’s the sense of achievement when I wrangle my protesting body through a new move. Discovering that somewhere under the layers of blubber I’ve developed functional core muscles. The joy of dancing to a track, dancing with music instead of to it. It’s not that I’m a great dancer, nowhere near it. But I know enough to hold my own dancing socially now, I can at least follow most leads. I’m drastically outclassed by some, I’m better than others – it works out.

Originally published at spinneretta