Last year was tough for me. Around November, after a string of one consistently garbage day after another, I decided I needed to intentionally inject more fun into my days. I think it’s one of the struggles of someone in business for themselves - you’re so focused on work that everything else, including your own happiness, tends to take a backseat.
And an uninspired, overworked entrepreneur does not a good entrepreneur make. The quality of work goes down. Creativity is tapped out. The joy is no longer there. And while I understand that there will always be ups and downs and that joy isn’t always going to be a constant, (nor should it be, because how else would we ever understand its sweetness without tasting the bitterness of bad), if there isn’t a whisper of happiness, or a flicker of goodness in the undercurrent of each week, then I have to ask myself:
What is the point?
That’s not a life I want to live.
I want to live a life I really, truly love. I want to live a robust life, experience the full spectrum of emotions, but I’d love a life that vibes towards the side of happiness.
So, Operation Have More Fun was re-born (you might remember its birth a few years ago when burnout first struck).
This time around, I decided I’d take dance class. After testing out a couple dance studios in the area, I finally found a vibe that was pure me. The energy was high, the people were welcoming, and it was a true dance class, not a workout class. (No shade to workout dance classes, but as Dane Cook so accurately once said, I just wanna dance!)
So I show up. I’m a little nervous. I’m not the world’s greatest dancer. I just really want to move and have some fun and not think about all the stressors in my life.
The instructor doesn’t talk much. We just follow his moves, and he starts the choreography after a brief warm up. Given that I’m at a beginner hip hop class, I’m relieved to find out the steps are within my wheelhouse. It’s just the right amount of challenging, and my brain almost hurts as I try to remember each step and simultaneously move my body to the choreography. I’m laughing at myself as I try to keep up, maybe half a beat off. I feel like a little kid learning to ride a bike. It’s thrilling and challenging and empowering. The choreography is true old school hip hop set to Janet Jackson.
I’m vibing, I like this place. The steps are starting to come more easily, and now the instructor is asking us for more. He keeps mentioning energy and to step up the performance aspect, the musicality, and to not just do the steps but feel it in our souls. I can get down with that. I turn it on a bit, sass it up, and the energy of the whole class feels next level. There are no worries, no stressors, no cares except for how we move, and it’s the most liberating, fun time I’ve had in a while.
We seem to have it down pat.
Then he stops the music, and says, “I recently went to a master class in New York. The instructor was talking about Michael Jackson at the Super Bowl, and how he came on stage and just stood there. Not just stood there but really stood there. And the crowd went wild. He did nothing for a full minute or so. The crowd still going wild. Then he turns his head. The crowd goes nuts. Then he takes off his glasses. The crowd erupts. He commanded a whole football stadium of people by simply standing in his power. That was performance. You don’t have to make it complicated, but in the beginning of the song, try to slow it down now. Bring your stage presence to this choreography. Show me your musicality”
He goes on, talking about embodying the lyrics. Feeling the song to the depths of the soul, and asks us to communicate with exaggeratedly slow movement.
And so, for the first 40 seconds, we move in slow motion doing improv. We think about the lyrics. We take on a certain stage presence. And then from second 41 through 59, we are asked to strike a pose every 4th beat, and really hit the pose.
Have you ever tried to seriously strike a pose? Can you do it without laughing? Can you keep a straight face?
Why do we laugh? Is it because it’s ridiculous, or are we simply uncomfortable? A little of both?
Watch the dancers from second 0 through 35. Could you imagine doing that? Posing? Vogueing? Improvising?
As you can imagine, the poses we choose to do are hysterical in our unsure bodies, and the laughs ensue.
The music is cut.
“Nah, nah, nah,” our instructor says, shaking his head and waving his hands as he walks to the front of the room. “I don’t care what you do for your pose, but strike a pose and own it. Stand in your power. You wanna go like this?” He does the pose to the right, and quicker than I can blink he’s transformed into a seemingly completely different person. He pauses for a beat and then comes out of it.
“Then, really do it,” he says with urgency, his eyes wide.
Why is this so hard? I ask myself. I love to dance around the house, why can’t I do it here without laughing? I’m surrounded by really good dancers. Why can’t they do it without a giggle?
And it hits me.
Improv is so hard compared to choreography because with choreography, we are given the steps, and we simply do them. If we feel ridiculous shaking our hips, it’s not on us, it’s just the choreography. But improv! Improv we do on our own. It’s a physical expression of our own choosing. And that’s why it’s intimidating. It’s a form of dance in which the proverbial curtain is pulled back from your soul, and you have to be brave and vulnerable and express what the song moves you to do.
No wonder we were half-assing it and resorting to giggles.
I refocus on our instructor.
“You want to do this? This? This?” Each this marked off by a new pose, each pose drastically different from the next, and it’s clear he’s a professional, as he morphs from one completely different person to the next. “Then own it! Don’t half ass it, really let yourself live. If you strike a sexy pose, feel that sensuality ooze throughout your entire being!” The room is silent. “If you take on a playful pose, let that sense of wild play come out in your facial expression. If you take your hands to your hips in a power stance, hold your head as high as you can and give me POWER in your expression! Let yourself express what it is that you’re showing the audience! Give yourself permission to LIVE! This is an opportunity to grow. I know it’s uncomfortable. I can see it. Your laughs show me that. Transcend that. Give me some life here! Tell the audience a story with your body!”
He turns the music on again. We try again. It is still uncomfortable. A few giggles ripple through the class.
The music stops.
“People,” our instructor says, a serious tone to his voice, “this is an opportunity to get in touch with yourself. Let yourself express the pose you’re taking on. Tap into whatever emotion you elicit from the movement. Make me believe it. Tell me a story. Show me who you are.”
The music starts. He’s somehow given us a simultaneous pep talk and talking-to that’s turned this space, its fluorescent lights flickering, its floor to ceiling mirrors exposing us all, into a judgement-free, safe zone. I feel like it’s ok to take a chance here. So I really try this time. We all do. We channel our inner Madonna, our inner Janet. We are fiery and fierce without moving much at all - doing it all through our energy, our eyes, our body language, and truly trying to embody the improv moves we come up with. It’s still uncomfortable, but we have permission, encouragement, and a sense of duty to fight through the urge to diffuse our discomfort with laughter.
“Yassss!” he exclaims, hands in the air, as the music continues to play, and we strike another pose, more bold this time, before moving at a snail’s pace until the next beat on which we’re meant to strike yet another pose. “Now use your levels!” he cries as he walks the room, giving encouragement as he dares us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones even further, and slower than I want to go, I begin to get really low to the ground just in time for my next pose to hit.
My body snakes like honey and I know that on the next beat, I have to be up high because after that, the actual choreography starts. I strike the pose to the left here, and commit.
“That’s it, everyone!” our instructor cries with approval. The choreography begins and we nail each step. At the end, he encourages more improv and this time we all go for it, moving around the entire room at a faster pace.
“Live your life fully!” he yells over the cheers of the dancers, and I’m so moved by his encouragement to just take the pressure off ourselves that I feel like I could cry. His encouragements throughout the class seemed like they were referencing his choreography, but it dawns on me that it was so much more than that.
We all know that we don’t need anyone else’s permission to be ourselves, but for some reason we sometimes get stuck in this viscous cycle of holding ourselves back. It happens with self-doubt, with insecurity, with being tested one garbage day after another. There’s sometimes a voice inside that is constantly second guessing ourselves. Telling ourselves to quiet down, don’t be too much, too bold, too loud. And when too much of that voice is amplified, we become a muted version of ourselves. We’re not as vibrant, nor as bold.
And then, every once in a while, you have a yoga teacher, or a dance teacher, or, hell, a random person at the post office, and they say something that just hits home. Something that reminds you that deep inside of you is the real you, the authentic you, the already perfect you. The you that does not need to be silenced or toned down. The you that deserves to live big and bold and exactly as you see fit.
I went to the dance class to have more fun. What I got out of it was a loving reminder that I am already enough, and that when I give myself permission to simply be, I really, truly am living.
Has anyone else tried a new form of movement that really speaks to them lately? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below!
