Just DANCE

I had THE BEST start to my day yesterday and THE WORST ending. Okay, it wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t my favorite night ever.

Let’s begin…

Yesterday I headed to Alvin Ailey to take a Haitian dance class.

A little background: I started dancing when I was 3 years old I loved a lot of different kinds, but found that Ballet was my strength.
At 15 I got accepted into the Intensive Program at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I was taking classes with the professional teachers and at this point was strongly considering dancing as a career.
But at 17, I had a devastating accident. During class, we were practicing jumps and I landed quite badly on one of mine and fully tore my right ACL. That was pretty much the end of my dancing career. I had to have reconstructive surgery and go through physical therapy for the rest of the year.

After that, I didn’t really dance anymore. I would take a couple ballet classes here and there, but it wasn’t the same. I missed dance a lot but for some reason could never get myself back into it.

Well, yesterday I realized I was going about it ALL WRONG! I I shouldn’t have just been forcing myself into these random ballet classes, I should have expanded my horizons and just had fun with dance.

CUE AMANDA! Amanda, also a former dancer, recently started working at a dance studio and attending classes there. She LOVES it. She told me this weekend that she wondered why it had taken her this long to get back into dance. She said she should have been doing it all along. She would tell me about all the neat classes she was taking like salsa, haitian dance, horton modern… It sounded amazing.

She wanted to try out a Haitian dance class at Alvin Ailey while she was visiting NYC so I agreed to accompany her. 

OH. MY. GAWDDD!!!!!

Now I know exactly what she meant. WHY HAVEN’T I BEEN DOING THIS ALL ALONG???? The class was amazing. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It was very CHALLENGING but so fantastic because it incorporated so many different styles of dance; ballet, jazz; modern, African dance, Latin dance even yoga-type moves (like this one).

It was so freeing and just SO MUCH FUN!

Amanda and I outside the studio after our class:
 

I was obviously thrilled I love dance and I can’t believe I’ve been depriving myself of it for this long! Well, no longer! I am planning to go back and take classes at Alvin Ailey once a week. I am also going to give Steps a try, as it’s supposed to be a fantastic studio.

I am very excited to get back into dance again!

*I HIGHLY RECOMMEND trying out a dance class yourself. It’s so much fun, you hardly realize you’re getting exercise in!*

And to make a long story short, and not ruin my happy dance mood too much. Let’s just say the Super Bowl party last night was kind of a fail.
The taxi driver got lost on the way there , no one ate my 7-Layer dip and BF and I could NOT find a cab home so we had to walk in the FREEEZING cold for WAY too long.
Anyway, here’s my dip before being baked…
 
 
I ended up eating piles of it to try and show people how good it was and to make up for the fact that no one else was trying it!!! BF had some too. But no one else had any. Waaaa! Maybe because there was already so much food and mine arrived late? Who knows!
But they could have at least TRIED it! It was so delicious, I swear! Ha.

Anyway YOU should try it. It really is good. I posted the recipe HERE.  I’m off to do laundry and grocery shop!

Do you like to dance? What is your favorite kind of dance?