I like to move it, move it...

If, two years ago, someone walked up to me and claimed I would be doing improv dance somewhere other than my room, I would start laughing my ass off, tell them they mistook me for social Sally over there, and curl up with a book until no one was looking...only then would the cabbage patching commence.

Strikin' a pose in the middle of downtown state college...the best kind of imrov

Every dance troupe or class I'd participated in was choreographed in some manner, but RAM's only instructions were to "let the music move your soul." I had walked into the club meeting freaking out that I hadn't practiced "the right way" to dance in over a year. I walked out forgetting there was even a correct way to dance. What was liberating about RAM was that you could do your own thing, even if the most experience I've had with hip-hop was one semester of classes and wistful watching of Step Up. Even when a majority of us were socializing/stretching on the floor, someone would be up in front of the mirror, popping and locking like nobody's business, and it was obvious judgment wasn't an issue in this club.

My main dance experience, the high school dance team, couldn't be more different from the styles people did in RAM. They have their own positives, but a hip hope kickline would fail miserably, and improving around the band would result in total disaster...

Okay, so perhaps I still worried what people were thinking about me when I started doing jazz in the midst of a bunch of break dancers and krumpers. Grand jetes don't look nearly as impressive when someone's effortlessly looking like a piece of machinery. A very self expressive piece of machinery. It was painfully obvious I was the whitest person in the room (I went in for a handshake when someone tried to bro-slap me), but by hour two of the session, I had gotten off the bench and, as Lady Gaga advises, I just...danced.

Sometimes, you just need a place to be goofy and weird and let your body respond to the music. I'm guessing an organized group with amazing personalities is a better place to do that than the shoes aisle of Plato's Closet. So what if I don't know how to break dance? The RAM squad isn't about having the best technique--it's about not being afraid to move and let go for a while.

Namaste.