This photo was taken by Mark Downey way back in 2011. We are friends who used to dance together. He’s an award-winning photographer, and this photo shoot was an exceedingly generous gift he once gave me. I still treasure every image; he effortlessly captured my love of dance in a way that I’ve never been able to express in words (and that’s saying a lot). Follow him on the socials! His travel photography will blow your mind. @lucidimagesgallery
Anyhoo, this is my clumsy way of announcing that after a 4-year hiatus, I’ve decided to start teaching again. Teaching what, you ask? Hard to say. 🤷♀️ I used to give all the credit to this-or-that modality… assuming ‘it’ was the thing responsible for the joy and exhilaration I feel when I move. But now I know better… so I’m just gonna show up, be myself, and hope for the best.
Classes will be fiery and full of Zumba-inspired sizzle sauce, but with way more verbal instruction and some slow grooves and gentleness mixed in. I’ve not settled on a name, which is fine by me because I don’t want to create a fitness ‘brand’… but I have to call it something, so for now I’m keeping it plain and simple – dance fitness fusion.
One of the things I’m MOST looking forward to is teaching without all the cult-fitness industry hoopla. I no longer have a grandiose aim… to change people’s lives or raise planetary consciousness (high-arousal states can be fun, but it ain’t sorcery… trust me, I’ve done the legwork). Nor am I going to glorify squats, wear club logos, or push-harder in order to get-thinner. No thank you very much. I just want to dance and sweat and laugh to good music in great company.
** UPDATED **
Hey ya’ll. I had a colleague and former ‘Org’-er inquire about this post & whether or not I was still going to be offering a holistic experience. I realize that some meaning might have gotten lost in my words. Possibly due to how liberated I felt when I wrote it!!… LOL
Sharing what I texted to her to clarify… (I’m sharing this here, because some of you might’ve had similar wonderings.)
“I just re-read my post. I think maybe it’s that I’m not trying to change peoples’ lives, raise planetary consciousness, and no high-arousal sorcery that was confusing… ?… so I’ll clarify.
People’s lives might change(!) they might not, but I’m not trying to make it happen… same with the podcast, I’m in service to my authentic expression (what is honestly moving me in the moment) first and foremost… creative integrity… THIS is what I want to share because it’s what matters most to me. If/when people benefit, that’s fucking ah-mazing!! But I’m not setting out to make that happen. Trying to ‘be of service’ is a grandiose (supremacist?) high that no longer interests me.
Raising consciousness… all I’m trying (and likely failing) to say here is I’m ditching all the ‘high-talk’ and ‘woo’… I’ll still educate about tangible things like how to move safely, nervous system regulation, and what-not… I’ll not be serving up a plate of dogma or magical thinking (which I only ever did sparingly).
High-arousal sorcery… another way of saying, I won’t mistake the bliss and the ‘high’ we all get for some transcendent evidence that we are all higher-up and better-than before. We will just enjoy the ride, and then drop back into the deeper self.
And I wrote… “I just want to dance and sweat and laugh to good music in great company.”
This is just to say… if I keep it simple, it will be more authentic. This is really me proclaiming that I don’t have to prove my worth or the ‘value’ of what I do anymore. I’m so stinking tired of that, ya know?”
AND I’ll just add to this, for those who maybe found this bit personally unsettling… “glorify squats, wear club logos, or push-harder in order to get-thinner”… I’m not saying that any of this is ‘wrong’… only that it’s no longer for me and I’ll leave it at that. If you follow my work you know that choice and agency is what matters most, and for me these things represent ways that I inadvertently conformed and rejected my body as it is. It might be different for you.
