Learning to Flex

I started dancing daily about four years ago. It's not that I am good at it. It's that it taught me to let go.

The same music that pumps through the most popular gyms filled the dance studio: electronic, latin, hip-hop, sometimes R&B, and often pop. Sometimes it was tame Cardi B - but often it was explicit. James sounded more like my father than a son when he found out we danced to WAP.

“You dance in the basement of a church,” he admonished. “Do you want to be spited?”

But I shrugged.

All of us, the 20 or so women ranging in age from 20 to 75 (I’m at the upper end of that spectrum) focused on the choreography taught by Jackie and Joanne - not the lyrics. The music is paused as the step ball change is analyzed. We changed off the right foot, then reversed off the left. The arms, which have been heavily influenced by TikTok, were added in. When instruction ended ,it’s Showtime! and our progress is recorded. I looked horrid.

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When I first started, I only attended the classes that were a fusion of more ballet (Vibe) or latin (Spice) steps. I figure skated as a kid, and did ballet in the summer months as I waited for the rinks to reopen.

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The studio is filled with young girls, but there is no noise. The perfect pickets looked the same: Hair pulled back tautly at the nape of necks, stray hairs secured with bobby pins. Shoulders drawn back - but down, stomachs pulled tight, heads and chins lifted high, toes pointed, arms straightened and fingers held up. “Your arms look like wet noodles,” the teacher scolds.

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I took contemporary dance as an elective in college, and attended Latin dance classes with friends at evening continuing ed classes. So there was a lot of familiarity when I decided to commit to dancing daily at a studio. But decades had passed and I couldn’t recall a jeter from a salsa. Still, when Jackie introduced the steps, I had a bit of muscle memory, so I learned the patterns pretty quickly.

On the other hand, for me, hip-hop - regardless of Cardi B - represented a nightmare. My body resisted jerking, popping, and locking. I wanted to point my toe instead of flex my foot. And I found the entire dance form to be ugly.

And then one day, that changed.

After a particularly frustrating day at work I carried an “F-it” attitude into class with me. As the percussive beats started, I gave in to my bad mood and it carried into movements. I slammed my fists forward and twisted my body, first to the right and then to the left. I “grounded out a cigarette” with my right foot - and brushed my invisible foes away. The societal norms, muscle memory, or whatever that inhibited me disappeared. I glanced in the mirror and saw a kid grinning. When I saw the video, I witnessed a transformation.

Had this crazy dance form finally taught me to let go? To go with the flow?

I still prefer the ballet-like moves over all other styles. But I’m ready to dance to a different beat.

Happy 2024!