My Dancing Adventure

So I recently started up dancing again. I'm taking a jazz class and a flexibility class. I'm taking these classes through the gym I work for. I get lots of discounts for being an employee so it's totally worth it.  I'm paying like $100 a month for four hours a week of dancing! I love it!

However, this dance "studio" is like the studios I went to growing up. Meaning I'm in a class with a bunch of high school girls. Some are even in middle school. So I'm just a creepy 22 year old dancing with high school students.

The worst part? I gave up jazz about six years ago and switched for ballroom dance. I wasn't ever the best jazz dancer, I wasn't the worst either though. Now, I'm probably the worst in my class. Because I'm old and haven't done it in six years...

(Did anyone else recognize these people from Dance Academy??? I love that show! If you haven't see it, check it out on Netflix!)

So today in dance class we learned a combination across the floor. 

Pique, double pique, prep into double pirouette, coupe, stag leap, tombe pas de bourree, prep into fouette turns (about eight), and then repeat. 

Okay. Let's see, a bunch of turns, blah blah blah.

I understood every word of the combination. It was easy for me to pick up. Except... just a couple things...

I never learned a stag leap in my entire life. 

 Yep. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not... but today in class, it proved to be a bad thing. How embarrassing to be in front of a bunch of high school girls (and a few boys that were absolutely incredible but looked older than high school) and to not know how to do a proper stag leap. It was a miserable failure.

This video isn't that great... I was worse.

I haven't done fouttees in six years.

I used to be fairly decent at these. I couldn't do as many as this girls in the video above, but I could do them and look good doing them. But that was six years ago. I, apparently, can't do these anymore without looking like some crazy drunk person. I'm falling, my arms and legs are all over the place because I just haven't done them, and my technique on them is really shaky. 

In ballroom, girls don't turn all that much unless there's a guy supporting you.

This was a biggie for me. In my jive routine last year I did like six pot-stir turns, with the guy holding my hand and guiding me through them. No big deal, it was easy! I could have done more! Except there was a guy supporting me. In jazz, and in this combination, there was no guy supporting me. And over they summer, I had a ankle mishap and was injured for a while. My ankles haven't fully recovered, they're really weak, and they are terrible for spinning. So without a guy, my weak ankles couldn't really handle all those spins without me falling, and I was getting a little too dizzy... 

Then we did a dance combination that... blew my mind!!! My jazz class never did stuff like this... and again, six years. 

But even though I felt all sad and pitiful about my current state of dance ability and technique, I'm so happy to be dancing again! :)