Entry #6 Dance

 

When I was only 4 years old, my mom decided to take me to dance classes. She had been a dancer her entire life until she had kids, so she always included me and my sisters in different genres of dance. My favorite was always contemporary/modern because there was something so relaxing about the music and feel of that genre. I also loved watching ballet dances. Not so much dancing it though, I always found it very difficult to maintain that strength and flexibility that ballerinas must have in order to do such graceful yet complex dances. The picture above demonstrates a ballerina striking a pose while on point shoes. That takes a ridiculous amount of balance; point shoes were always a struggle for me. Think about it... You are doing a two minute dance, sometimes even more, while standing on the tip of your toes. That has to be painful! Professional ballerinas train for hours a day and it takes serious dedication and ability to get to their level. Obviously, I always looked up to them and admired their dedication. But unlike most dancers, I never planned to make it a career. Dance is a way for me to release any stress and thoughts going through my head. It is more of a hobby rather than a dream I want to pursue.

As I grew up and tried more genres, I fell in love with the history and creativity of hip hop. Even though I was still practicing slower more technical styles such as ballet and contemporary, the beats and rhythm in hip hop gave me so much more confidence and I knew that I had found a new favorite style of dance. I continued to take more hip hop classes to learn how to loosen up after all those ballet classes I had taken my whole life; and eventually I joined a competitive team. I was hesitant at first because I had never done hip hop competitively, but my friends that had been in the team for a while convinced me that it would be a cool experience. They were right! Not only did I get to dance with my old friends, I also made new friendships and the team truly became like a family to me. Class was every Monday night and there was not a day where I was not excited to dance with all my friends. The energy in that room was so positive, we started off every practice with an inspirational quote. And our teacher would make us hit the top of the door before coming into class. This action represented leaving our problems behind and starting off practice with a fresh mind. Even though it was a competitive team, I never got to be in a competition since they were all cancelled because of the coronavirus. My only regret is that I did not start with this team earlier since I could only stay for a year. The reason why I decided not to dance this year is that with college starting, I could not keep up with the finances and the hours of practice. Practices were only on Mondays but in order for the dance to look good every dancer had to spend extra hours outside the studio and practice the dance over and over again. Also, my expenses were starting to stack up with college starting soon, so I had to drop out of my dance class.

Dance was my only form of exercise at some point, so now that I do not dance as often I have been going hiking and lifting weights more often. But I do prefer dancing over any other work out because I do not feel like it is an exercise I am just simply having fun! Finally, just because I am not in competitive dance anymore does not mean my dance journey is over. I do still enjoy taking drop in classes where there are new people and new choreography every time I go. I have met really talented dancers that inspire me and push me to try harder just by watching them dance.