-Y1+365; Freestyle Dance to “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Today, I am giving myself a gift. That gift, is the gift of dance.

I have always wanted to feel like a dancer. Yet, my past led me in the direction of team sports, and always feeling too big to be a dancer. I am not built like a dancer, I do not have a background in dance, but I want to be a dancer.

Disclaimer: For the last year, I have been heavily involved in Pole Fitness at Vertical Fusion in Colorado, so I have a slight repertoire of pole moves, but I am far better at strength based tricks than incorporating anything into a dance on the fly, or stringing moves together to anything fluid and cohesive.

Therefore, for my birthday I am giving challenging myself to a year of dance. To be a dancer, I feel I need to be able to move fluidly, without a script: freestyle. I want to have a repertoire to pull from, and I want my body to feel like that of a Dancer’s. I want to feel calm, and mobile, and take ownership of the space around me.

So, every day for the next year I will dance one freestyle dance. I will keep track of any changes in my body as it responds to my challenge, I will take note of any training, and I will watch my progress, and I really hope others will watch with me! I am giving myself 15 “oops” days, in that I can have 15 days I don’t dance to ensure I don’t accidentally miss a day and thing, “wellp, f this. I already messed it up,” and proceed to give up. Additionally, I am going to try to incorporate my dancing into my day to day life, instead of pausing life for the sake of the challenge. Therefore, I may try to dance on a mountain while camping. Freestyles such as this will likely be posted after the fact, so posts may not happen every day, but dancing definitely will! (i.e. the video for today will actually be late because apparently I don’t know how to work Youtube… #IFeelOld #AmIACurmudgeon?

A few days ago, I’d picked out an awesome song to start with, as I figured worst case scenario I would forget andy and all moves and could start attempting a very white-girl version of rapping… Instead, Taylor Swift released the most magical track ever, and the timing was just too apt.

More later. Tonight: BIRTHDAY!

Please watch my first freestyle to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” (except that if you don’t that’s OK too because I totally don’t know my space, kicked a chair, fell over, and an assortment of other embarrassing foibles… But you also can…)