Why Don’t You Dance?

by | Aug 2, 2017 | Blog

Ever had the urge to dance to a song you love but you decide not to because there are people around? Why don’t you dance?

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Before we dive into this whole dancing business, let me tell you how these blog ideas come about. Typically, something happens in my day and I have a flash of thought: I need to write about this!

I make a note to myself in my phone and that’s all there is to it.

Yesterday I made the note: things I’ve learned from my sister. It was her birthday, so that makes sense.

Then this morning at the gym, I was warming up while the earlier class was in the middle of their workout. Calabria, Firebeatz Remix came on loud throughout the gym. Of course I wanted to dance. But I didn’t….

Why do we stop dancing? When do we start creating stories in our heads about what is appropriate and what isn’t? When do you stop doing what we want because of what other people might think? When did we put a silencer on our own joy and fun?

The narrative goes something like this:

I shouldn’t

People are watching

I’ll embarrass myself

I don’t know how to dance

I’ll look stupid

I don’t want to be the center of attention

Now, I realize not everyone is like this. If my mom is in the middle of the grocery store and hears a good song, she starts dancing. And singing. In fact, I would imagine that if my mom went to my gym (she doesn’t), she might go so far as to put down her barbell in a workout and just start dancing. That’s who she is. She has dancing in her heart.

However, I am sure there are things she does avoid because of fear of judgement from others. In fact, I know there are.

Whether it’s what you wear, when you dance, if you dance, if you act silly, or anything in between: just go for it. As one of my clients said in her journal the other day: be a tsunami of joy.

Here’s what I know would have happened if I had started dancing in the gym earlier: I would have smiled. Endorphins would have been released throughout my body. Other people might have danced, too. People would have smiled. Birds would chip and the sun would lift higher in the sky (okay…maybe not that part, but you just never know).

All this ties back to my sister, interestingly enough.

Debi is almost 2 years older than me. When she graduated from the 8th grade, I sang “I Hope You Dance” to her graduating class at their senior banquet.

On this day after her birthday I’ll say it again: Debi, I hope you dance. I hope you live out loud and choose to be a tsunami of joy.

I hope that for myself and I hope that for all of you.

Even though I didn’t dance, I sure as heck performed during my workout! I had to modify the hell out of it (re-write it all together) because of my knee, but I still got it done!

Slowly workup to a heavy single strict press

Slowly workup to a heavy single deadlift

AMRAP 7

Deadlift

EMOM 7

5 pushups

So basically for the AMRAP, it was as many deadlifts as possible in 7 minutes, stopping every minute on the minute to do 5 pushups. It got me good.

Full disclosure: it got me so good I came home and took a 1 hour nap!

On the food front:

Ah, all the food! Right after my workout I had a cobb salad with chicken, avocado, egg, tomato & bacon.

Around noon I had a mini meal of grilled chicken and a couple hours after that I had steak and sweet potato.

Dinner was homemade (rare occasion) a beautiful wild caught salmon filet (crispy skin for the win) and cauliflower rice.

Make today amazing! Choose to be a tsunami of joy!

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