I Just Wanna Dance

I love to dance. For serious. It’s one of my favorite things in the world.

A little over three weeks ago I hurt my knee. I generally don’t care too much (one can always drink more to ignore the pain) except that I haven’t been able to jazzercise, and since at times I can barely walk I also haven’t really been dancing. It’s feeling a little better today so I’ve been groovin’ around the apartment. Of course that probably means it’ll be worse tomorrow, but that is literally a problem for another day!

Now just because I love to dance, one should not assume I am a “good” dancer, or that I like any kind of dancing. If you said you loved music, would I assume that means you love every genre there is? I mean maybe you do, but you know what happens when you assume.

My brother is actually a pretty decent dancer. He was impressing my friend Kate with his moves last weekend. I was super happy they played Gangnam Style because he loves it and rocks the hell out of that song.

My own love of dancing started young. There are some home videos of my parents playing Paula Abdul songs and me prancing about the living room at like 3 or 4 years old (my brother is also there shaking his diaper butt around a little. It’s pretty funny). I spent half my young years begging my parents to let me take ballet, and finally my friends and I were enrolled at a studio.

None of us were particularly good at that point. I kept with it for a few more years though, dreaming of someday becoming a famous ballerina like my teacher. My dad built me a barre so I could do my stretches and exercises at home. I made gradual progress, as evidenced by my yearly role in the Nutcracker. I started with super small things like the angels behind the Sugar Plum Fairy, a party guest, to mouse, and eventually I was one of the dolls at the party that dances around after it’s wound up. The doll was my favorite. Plus, I was an adorable doll. No, really!

That's me!

However that year my instructor determined I was ready to move to toe shoes and start taking classes basically every day with the more serious students, and I promptly quit. This is actually one of my worst traits; I do tend to quit when things get too hard (this also happened with piano, trumpet, soccer, cheerleading, and god knows what else). After that I took a year of jazz, and then stopped dancing altogether. 

I was ecstatic in middle school when they started holding school dances. My main motivation to move up to high school was the fact that they had dances more often. Everyone else worried about who they were going with and what they were going to wear. I could care less. Honestly I preferred going by myself so I didn’t have to deal with someone the entire evening. Same thing when I turned 21: I was more excited about going to bars to dance than I was about the ability to drink legally. You know that Dane Cook spiel about women going to bars and dancing around their shoes in a circle going “I just wanna dance!” Yeah, that’s totally me.

Now some people have taken this to mean I would enjoy things like going to salsa or swing dancing. Since you don’t know until you try, I have gone to salsa once or twice, and I hate it. Basically it comes down to the problem that I don’t really like dancing with people, and I especially hate dances where someone else is in charge and directing me around. One of my friends claims this is an example of my “control issues,” but I’m not even going to designate that nonsense with a response. I don’t particularly like grinding for the same reasons (not to mention that basically it’s a random person attacking me with their crotch for an extended amount of time, but to music. I don’t see how that makes it better).

My typical Saturday morning

What do I like? I like dancing at bars, weddings, around my house in my underwear, or hell, anywhere that has music playing. I’ll dance in the middle of the store. I’ll dance about in the living room at a house party while everyone stares at me like I’m a lunatic. You know that knee injury I mentioned? Well, this time around it was from jazzercise, but the initial injury was actually back in November, dancing like a madwoman at the office party!

I can’t say I dance particularly well. I dance what I feel, and it’s not super awesome or snazzy. Half the time I feel like I’m really dancing to the wrong beat, or at least not the same beat everyone else is moving to. I mainly dance with my hips, and there have been implications in the past (and outright statements) that I dance like a stripper, but I don’t really see it.

But the best thing is, I don’t even care. You know that quote to “dance like nobody’s watching?” That’s what I do. I dance pretty much the same when I’m in my apartment baking as when I’m out at the bar. If someone offered to teach me to “dance well” I’d probably ignore them, because I have fun the way I dance and it doesn’t matter to me how it appears to other people. I don’t want to think about it, I just want to do it.

This is probably why I love dancing so much.  With everything else in life I am constantly worrying about what other people think and if they’re judging me. When it comes to dancing, I’m honestly have a “to hell with it” attitude, and that’s amazing. Now if only I could apply that to other areas of my life, I’d be set!