Miss Independent--Day #12

Today's prompt is to talk about something I miss. There's a lot of things that are universally missed (friends, family, my cat--you should all miss Callie), but I don't want to bore you all with the most clichéd stuff, so I'll talk about something that's a little more personal to me.

I miss dance. I can't grande jeté worth a damn. But I still miss it.

I started modern dance at age 3, then switched to ballet for two years. I was a little on the so petrified I refused to ever talk shy side, so performances were a bit of a struggle for me. I took a seven year hiatus (in which I became pro at sitting on the couch and negotiating with my parents to skip gymnastics), then took up jazz and modern for a few years. I never stuck with my lessons long enough to become amazing, but I had a natural rhythm and a "wah, look at me!" kind of attitude on stage.

As you've probably guessed, I'm kind of a yoga freak. I'll be honest, I mainly came to the ashram for the yoga classes, rather than the meditation and folding laundry (though I'm glad I can work on my household chore skills). In high school, I really started feeling an affinity towards yoga. Unfortunately, for both time and money reasons, I had to choose one.

I hadn't really missed dance until we did an Arati practice at Shoshoni. Arati is when you dance and make offerings to the deities in temple. We use objects such as peacock feathers, scarves, mirrors and umbrellas to make the offerings. They all represent things, and guess who will tell you? Google.

During Arati, both the harmonium and the drums play in the background, making it very hard not to start hip-hopping in the middle of temple. Any time music comes on--even if I'm in the middle of JC Penny's, I will start dancing.

At breakfast yesterday, I learned that Zoey, a work-study at Shoshoni, loves dance. As we munched on Latkas and oatmeal (yum), she told me all about Aerial dance (usually seen at Cirque De Soleil), which looks like this:

I'd seen this a few years ago when I went trapeeze-ing with a friend, and it looks so graceful. I'd imagine it feels like you're flying, though I wouldn't know; I should probably work on being able to come close to a split before attempting such dance. It's a bit like flying yoga--perfect for an ashram.
I told Zoey how much I missed jazz and modern, and how modern is a big yoga-y. We've got some plans to try and convince the Shoshoni managers to get someone to teach a modern dance class some afternoon.


In my experience, yoga is very calming. It exhausts me in a way that allows me to focus on the present. It's a tool, and a pretty darn sexy one at that. But dance has always been one of my most prominent means of expression. It's freeing. When you're on stage, literally nothing else matters. You know the audience is there, but you don't think about how or if they're judging you. You just dance.

Even in dance team (and we all know how well that went), when we finally got past the pom-pomming bit and threw ourselves into "Thriller," I forgot that I was a "sports supporter," AKA just another name for a cheerleader. When you throw your arms up into the air, or leap across a field, you feel the energy shooting out of you. 

My neighbors think I'm a bit strange

As do laundry-goers

Perhaps I'll sign up for a class or two next year. Or I'll create "yoga dance," whatever the hell that is.




Namaste.