A Thirst To Spend My Fire and Restless Force Tracking My True, Original Course

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;

- Matthew Arnold
The Buried Life

7/30/2013

Dancing... funk class - take 2

Today I went back to the funk class.  At first, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is just as hard as before..."

     There were four brand new people tonight. When the teacher asked, "Who is new?" I said, "Well, it is my second time," She waved me away and said, "Aww, second time, you are going to be fine." I did not believe her. Her advice to new people is to come back at least once more, as it gets easier the second time. 

     Three of the four new people left after only a short time in the class.  This made me really proud of myself for sticking it out for the entire class and for coming back. 

     About halfway through the class, I started to realize that there were occasionally moments where my feet were doing what they were supposed to do in a sort of muscle memory kind of way. Like... I wasn't having to think through every single move, some of it was just happening. I still missed quite a few steps, but I also tried to focus on relaxing and just moving a little too and feeling more confident in myself to just allow myself to realize that its okay if I look like an idiot. 

    So, this is growth. Now the difficult part: Jazz is moving to Tuesday nights at 7:15 (it was on Thursdays).  Note that this would have been great had it happened in February.  Sigh...  Funk is from 6:20-7:20 (but it really is like 6:25-7:25).  Boo.  They are about 15-20 minutes apart in driving distance and parking is a bit of a pain in both locations.  I clearly am going to have to choose.  I might split my time 50/50.  Not sure.

     The thing is... I definitely grow more from the jazz class because it is right at my zone of proximal development as a learner (non-educators will probably need to look that up). I am not sure which one is a better workout.  Jazz hurts... but in a good way.  The warm up is I - N - T - E - N - S - E!  The class and the choreography moves much more slowly though, so I rarely break a heavy sweat. The funk class is a bit above my level and moves really fast, so I am pretty much in a constant sweat in that class, but it doesn't really hurt. Is it true, no pain no gain?  Funk, however, is free with my gym membership. Jazz is $15 a week.  Hmmm....   decisions decisions.

     On the plus side, this does open up my Thursday nights to try Laughter Yoga. 



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