Learn~2~Dance

Thought I would start off with telling you why I got into dancing and what it has done for me.

Why? Because back in 2003 when I was 43 and had a young child, my other child Laura, then 15 (large age gap between the kids) didn't always get a lot of attention from me, so one day she came to me and said something along the lines of..

"Mum, pleeeeease will you come with me to Line Dancing Class, just once coz we never get to do anything together any more"

Now that may not have been completely accurate on her part but I did realise it also had to have a ring of truth to it, so I agreed and off we went to my first Line Dancing Class (I was of course skeptical and wasn't sure I wanted to be prancing around with a load of people with cowboy boots and stetsons on but a Mum's gotta do what a Mum's gotta do).

I was in for a huge surprise.. no cowboy boots or stetsons, hardly any country and western music and what there was I quite liked LOL. I was hooked!

Within about a month, I was attending not one but around 3 classes per week, I loved it AND found I had a talent for dance I didn't know I had! Heck I loved it so much I went even when my daughter couldn't be bothered, you know like teenagers do LOL

I was overweight when I started and I used to come off the dance floor absolutely dripping wet with sweat and after around 4 to 6 weeks I noticed my clothes not fitting and I was getting comments too on my weight loss, WOW!! Bonus!!!

What I loved about that was I never thought of myself as "going to an exercise class to lose weight" and so keeping it up was a doddle.. wonderful.

Over the space of a year I gradually went down from a dress size of 12/14 to 8/10 (UK size) and I had not been able to fit into size 8 clothes since I was 18... My whole body got so toned at the same time as well.

I noticed other benefits too, I used to suffer from headaches at least 2 or 3 times a week, they had gone, my lower back problems disappeared and I slept like a baby, again, wow!! and all this AND I get to enjoy what is causing it!!!!!

Oh yeah, almost forgot.. Laura and I also got on better because we were spending more time together and had something in common instead of the "this child has morphed into swamp thing and I do nothing but argue with her" kind of relationship we had before.

So if anyone out there is ummming and ahhhing and undecided about whether to give some kind of dance class a go or not, I would HIGHLY recommend you at least give it a try.

Next post I will tell you about how I even did some competition dancing and how I fared.

This is a picture taken just before I was about to compete, sorry the picture is not too good, my daughter took it at the time and it's the only one I have, bless her she took just a few, this was the best and then she cheered Mum on which was great!

I was EXTREMELY nervous before competing for all the normal reasons but also because about a year earlier I had competed in kind of a "taster" competition and it was not until I got on the floor with the other competitors that I realised I suffered from stage fright.

So peculiar because I had no problems at various dances we attended and dancing in front of lots of "non dancers" so this came as a huge shock to me.

My teacher at the time told me I was easily the best dancer out there but I simply stiffened up and could barely move. I am sure you can understand that put me off for a long time.

Anyway, eventually I got nagged enough to give it a go again this time in a proper competition and I am pleased to say, I came third and got a bronze medal and I was so chuffed with my little self.