So you Think You Can't Dance?

People have different histories with dance which could prompt them to rule out dance all together or find alternative dance experience like Shake Your Soul®. I’m sure my story will strike a cord with some and I’m hoping it will inspire others to listen.

Since I can remember myself, I was always enrolled in a dance class. I did fine but never got to where I really wanted to get. First there was the Royal Ballet academy class where I was tested each year in order to go to the next level. I was told I couldn’t go on pointe because my feet were not structured the right way. I quit Ballet but luckily, I found other dance forms to explore. When I was a bit older I really wanted to get into a preforming arts school and I tried to prepare for the auditions all by myself but, fortunately or unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Then, I was looking to enroll in a dance program at college and I failed. At that point I started pursuing a different career and it wasn’t until I became a mom that dance came back into my life big time. The demands of motherhood were getting to me and I was looking for a way to feed my soul. I came across an ad for a creative dance class for adults and I decided to try it. All these years of dancing but I never danced like this before.  This class opened up something that I never knew existed in me. For the first time I wasn’t required to follow somebody else’s moves. I was given a loose structure and encouraged to create. It took so many years for me to discover that not only I could improvise but that I’m quite good at it. It was a total surprise. It gave me hope, meaning and a whole new way to look at myself. I still didn’t get the message that this was my calling. until a few years later, when I took a yoga dance workshop that reminded me of that free form dance experience and made me realize that I want to teach. If I was craving the safe space to explore my own movement, I thought, I bet others are looking for the same experience. They say that people want to teach what they themselves need most. Till this day I’m not sure that wanting to teach was not a compromise I made with my soul that really just wants to dance. It’s challenging to go against years of conditioning and just go for what my heart desires but I’m not giving up. When I look at my life and my relationship with dance I am thankful that I kept listening to my spirit all along and persisted in finding ways to dance it in spite of the fact that I was told in different ways I couldn’t do it the “right way”. Nobody had told me that “everybody is a dancer”. That “if you can walk your can dance”. In fact maybe I wouldn’t get to experience how healing and larger that life dance could be with if hadn’t encountered all these obstacles. I got to claim dance for myself and  I want to encourage you to do the same.