Hi dancers! This week’s post is available on Medium:
Read on Medium: My Week-Long Anxiety Attack
Cycles of Dance
One of my coaches talks about creation working in a cycle of phases. You might be in a phase of exploring something new, excelling at something you’ve been working on for awhile, or transitioning to something greater. We go through similar cycles in dance.
Continue readingFocus on Your Own Dance Journey
Reaching out to my dancers today who may be feeling like everyone except them is getting to resume their regularly scheduled dancing program, full of in-person lessons, social dances, showcases, and/or competitions. This post is for you.
My current dance status: I’ve been lucky to have had in-person lessons for a number of months now. They were intermittent through the second half of 2020 and became more regular after the new year. Currently, I’m taking two private lessons and one group class a week. My last competition was February 2020, and I don’t know when I’ll be competing again. Two of the competitions that I was hoping would be my pandemic-era return to the floor have already passed.
Compared to some, my dance journey is awesome right now. I’m getting to dance regularly. I’m getting to work with my teacher in person. Heck, my studio survived the pandemic shutdowns! Compared to others who have already managed to compete multiple times in 2021, my dance journey is…ok, better than nothing. At least I’m getting to dance, right?
Whether my dance journey seems awesome or just ok to you doesn’t matter. Because it’s my journey, not yours.
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Rediscover Your Dance
Would you believe I had dance four days this past week? Two private lessons, a studio party (!), and a group class this morning. I could have taken advantage of a group class discount on Friday as well, but I needed a night at home. It was the closest I’ve come to my pre-pandemic life in over a year.
Continue readingLive Life Passionately: An Interview with Megan Cross
Dancers, please welcome Megan Cross to the blog! Megan has been learning ballroom for just under a year. She started with Fred Astaire Dance Studios of Laguna Hills, CA in the middle of the pandemic and has already conquered a team match and two showcase performances, and is preparing for the Fred Astaire World Championships! Like your host, Megan is also a writer. She recently turned her passion for vintage into a blog called The Vintage Love Letter. I was eager to sit down with her and hear about her initial impressions of ballroom dance and her experiences during the first year of her dance journey.
Continue readingProgress Doesn’t Always Go Forward
I was a little frustrated with my dancing this past week. After a breakthrough the week before and feeling like I was understanding more about why my body hurt while dancing and how to fix it, I went home from Tuesday’s lesson with my back aching in that old trouble spot. We were working on Foxtrot, and I thought I employed the same tweaks as the week before that made my movement in Waltz so much more powerful and less painful. Apparently not, or at least not with the same results. Thursday, we returned to Waltz and while I felt like I made some minor progress, my back was still aching.
Continue readingUnderstanding Why My Body Hurts
Happy Saturday, dancers! Life has kept me busy over the last few weeks. I was travelling for about a week (airports and airplanes were a lot fuller than my last trip in February!). The day after I returned home, I was sitting in line to get my second dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine. I’ll be fully charged in another week, yay! Go go gadget Covid shield! For those interested, I had one day of fever and body aches following the shot. Unfortunately, the body aches triggered one of my headaches (it doesn’t take much) and that hung around for several days. It was interesting how the fever and body aches came and went. I described it to a friend like doing a system check – flip the switches on and then flip them off. I was feverish and then I wasn’t. There was no lingering.
Luckily, I was free of all symptoms in time for my first dance lesson in two weeks. I didn’t have the opportunity to solo practice while I was gone (aside from visualizations), so my body was either going to love or hate me for jumping back in. Sometimes I feel like the Tin Man during those first few dance steps as I shake the rust off my joints. Our warmup Waltz felt pretty good though!
Continue readingDancing in the Present, Gratefully
This past week was notable in two ways. First, this past Tuesday was my 38th birthday! I’m officially in my “late 30s” as opposed to my “mid 30s” and it feels weird. But also pretty great. Despite all the shite that the last year has brought, I feel more tuned into my true self than ever before. Despite the many many challenges still ahead of us, I am excited for what the next year will bring.
The second notable aspect of this past week is that San Francisco Open happened. SF Open was the competition I was preparing for before the pandemic hit. I was supposed to debut in Pro-Am Rhythm and I was working with my new amateur partner to debut in the Am-Am circuit as well. And then there came Covid.
It struck me almost as an afterthought as I saw social media posts from the event that I was supposed to be at a year ago. Like, “Oh look, a video of SF Open, that’s this weekend? Wait. That’s this weekend? Already?!” Just another processing moment of the colossal impact that this pandemic has had on our lives.
Continue readingSpreading My Wings
After two weeks of taking two lessons per week plus a La Blast class, the happy brain chemicals are finally kicking in. I feel like a bird that’s been let out of its cage so it can fully stretch its wings and take flight again. Having been in that cage for so long, I appreciate the open sky more than ever.
Continue readingBack in the Waltz of Things, But Not the Same Waltz
I’m officially back to regular private lessons, twice a week! I think it’s been over a year since I’ve had more than one lesson in a week. It felt strange, in a good way, to return to the studio for that second day. My sense of what day it was, shaky at best since the pandemic, was also thrown off, but for the chance to dance more, I didn’t mind.
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The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 