Zumba!

I marked something off my list this week! I finally went to that Zumba class!

At first I was thinking does this count as a dance class? But oh my, yes I think it does. I was doing the samba, the cha cha, and there was a lot of hip and booty shakin'.

I drug a friend along with me because like I mentioned before I have this thing about showing up somewhere by myself. She really did not want to go, but agreed. You see her texting boyfriend (yes, I swear they have a whole relationship almost completely via text) was coming to stay with her the next day and she did not want to be so sore she couldn't walk and had heard Zumba was kind of hard. She was giving me sighs of dread which was making me loose my never a little.

We got there super early to scope out the place. We parked and watched the place for a good 15-20 minutes before getting out of the car. It was hilarious. We kept worrying. What if there are only 5 people in the class? What if we have to do solos? Oh my, there are screens in the lobby so you can see what is going on in the classroom! What if everyone is super skinny and coordinated? We kept trying to talk ourselves out of it.

Finally there seemed to be a lot of people in the lobby and they didn't look too intimidating so we decided to go in. The girl from my bible study group that had invited me was there with 2 friends. We chatted and signed in and paid (only $7!) and then made our way to the classroom.

The class was great! I'm not saying I was great, but I did enjoy the class. There were songs that I recognized and the moves were challenging, but not impossible. And by the end of class, I had worked up a good sweat. My friend and I left feeling good and very glad we went!

It was really a lot of fun. My only problem with dancing is I think I have developed a complex over the years. I am a people watcher and I have watched a lot of bad dancers and thought to myself...do I look like that? This has made me very self conscious about dancing which in turn has actually made my dancing kind of bad.

You have to let go when you dance and really get into it for it to look good. I have no problem doing this in the privacy of my own home, but put me in a room with other people (and in this case a huge mirrored wall) and I do everything as if I am doubting myself.

I didn't have this problem when I was younger. I was a cheerleader in high school and had no problem dancing in front of the whole school. Even my first few years of college, I didn't mind getting out there on the dance floor with all my girls. But years of watching other people dance has made me self conscious about it, and I now avoid it unless I have some liquid courage or am completely alone. (You should have seen me last night rocking out in my living room with my new Zumba moves.)

Maybe this Zumba stuff can help me get my confidence back! I ordered a DVD so I can get used to doing it full force alone for a little while and I plan on going back to the class (not every week because you know- money is tight, but I think I'd rather use $7 to go to that class than go to a movie! So it will be like my treat every once in a while).

This is totally not the type of dancing I had in mind when I put "Take a Dance Class" on my list, but I think it's just what I needed!