dance alternatives.

For the past few months I have been taking a cardio belly dancing class at the gym. This past Friday, much to my dismay, I discovered that my belly dancing class was cut. ca-put. nada. o-v-e-r. They didn’t even give us a few week’s notice. The class was up and running the week before and this past Friday, it was no longer in existence. To add insult to injury, all the cardio and fitness classes were cut from 60 minutes to 45 minutes. How the hell am I supposed to get my yoga on in 45 minutes?! What the fuck is up with that Bally Total Fitness?! Naturally, I wrote a very strongly worded letter to the powers-that-be. Of course, they’ll never read it and they won’t give a shit. But at least I said my piece.

In other news last week, my dear friend Ana celebrated her 31st birthday last Thursday. For those of you who don’t know her, I’ve known Ana since high school! We were on yearbook staff together and ended up going to UCSB together. We even lived together while in college. Yeah. Those were the days when our household would get up early on Saturday morning to clean the house. Those were also the days I would cook and pack lunches for my housemates during finals week. Boy were we nerds!


This was taken during my 31st birthday at Zebulon.

Anyway… to help Ana celebrate the big 3-1, some friends of hers set up a gathering at Maxwell’s in Oakland. Thursday nights is salsa night. They offer free lessons from 8-9pm and then it’s live band and DJ for the rest of the night. My roomie Jen and I didn’t stroll in til about 10pm, so we missed the lessons. But it was nice sitting back, having a drink and watching other people dance. Though I love to dance, I have no idea how to salsa and realized that I am in need of some salsa basics. A really nice guy named Saddiq (not sure how spell his name, but this is how is sounded) took pity on my poor soul and brought me to the floor for a song. According to Saddiq, anyone can dance the merengue, so when they played some merengue, he dragged my pitiful ass on the dance floor. It was pretty easy and I thought I caught on pretty nicely… until my big mouth had to say, “You’re not gonna spin me around, are you?” Saddiq’s reply? “Oh yes I am!” Cest la vie. All I could do was twirl in my merengue best and hope for the end of the song. I think I laughed hysterically more than I twirled. Thank heaven he was a good sport!

Anyway… with the cancellation of my belly dancing class and my sudden curiosity for salsa dancing, I decided to sign up for lessons at the Silliman Center near my sister’s house. Yup. That’s my personal summer indulgence. I’ve decided to trade my horrible eating out tendencies in exchange for some dance lessons. $71 later, I have six weeks (4 salsa sessions and 6 belly dance sessions) worth of dance lessons. I figure that’s a pretty good price considering dance studios cost a fortune (if you think I’m getting ripped off, you’ll let me know, right?). Letting go of my eating out habits suck, but it’s forcing me to save money, cook more and pack my food, which is nice. It’s also teaching me the difference between social eating and eating for fuel. It’s a slow process, but I’m still learning.

A small portion of my day today was devoted to mapping out my new dance schedule, which officially starts in July when I get back from Calgary. In the meantime, I’m doing 4 weeks worth of drop-in belly dance classes. Dolian (my teacher at the gym) will also teach these classes, so I should be right at home. The exciting part is that I get to learn how to use zils (finger cymbals)! heh!

I also mapped out my workout schedule and I’ve decided that I’d like to get back into the CrossFit swing, but I’m just going to do it much less – around three times a week as opposed to 4-5 times a week. I think my body just isn’t feeling it anymore. But I need the strength and conditioning. Oh well… I’m also back to spinning and will try to throw some fight classes in the mix.

I’m trying to get healthy again. Wish me luck!