Let's Dance!

The girls and I are in full dancing mode this winter. Both Isabel and Lottie have started ballet again. Since I haven't blogged in awhile, they both started in a "real" ballet class last autumn. We're still doing rec center classes, but this one is taught is taught by an instructor from Reston Conservatory. She is FABULOUS. She brings costumes and teaches the girls French. And of course they love her. She taught Isabel's class a small routine at the end of the class in the autumn. Lottie knows that chasse means "gallop." And both know the joys of magic boxes and dead bugs. (You have to have been there.) In fact, Isabel seems so devoted to ballet that I think we're going to enroll her in a full time program come autumn of 2010. What a difference from a year and a half ago when we couldn't get her to go into class!

As for me, I've started Zumba. Tonight was my first class. Lord, that can kick you butt. I am taking it through the fitness center at work and of course the instructor is tight and can shake her booty like no one's business. Doubly of course, she's 47 years old and looks more fabulous than I did at 27 (nevermind 36). I knew I was in for some trouble when I picked her up from the lobby- yes I am a brown-noser!- and noticed her her pants had "ZUMBA!" down one of the legs. On the way out, she casually informed me that she ran marathons. Of course I had just bragged that I ran 5K distances. I always suspected that fitness instructors were a different breed.

I was a little apprehensive since I was somewhat convinced I'd be in a class of white women decades older desperate to look sexy and fit. Is that mean? I apologize but 36 is close enough to middle age that my inclination is to want to be hip to people 15 years younger rather than 15 years older. I guess it's my mid-life crisis. My only experience with zumba prior to this class was watching one with the girls next to our local pizza place while waiting for Ryan to show up for dinner. In that class, the only ones looking sexy (and boy did they) were the instructor and her assistant. Everyone else was really lame. Our class was a good mix of age ranges and fitness abilities, but even with that, I couldn't bring myself to look at myself in the mirror. Fitness clothes always look so much cuter in Lucy than they do when I am panting trying to keep up with hip thrusts. (There were of course lots of hip thrusts in Zumba.) And, for the record, it is next to impossible to gracefully salsa in running sneakers. We did have one superstar student who was good but not sexy. She did manage to catch the eye of the other "slower" students, tho, probably b/c she could salsa along with the instructor.

So, hopefully at the end of the 10 weeks, Lottie's chasse will actually meet the spirit of the music, Isabel's plie will be stronger, and my bootie will be firmer.

Au revoir