DANCING WITH THE SUBPARS!

Which camp do you fall into? The “I can’t it still once the music starts!” team? Or the “Find someone else if you wanna dance.” school? I have had the pleasure of life in both camps. Although, I must be honest, I have been in the dance camp for the greater part of my life. And I am here to tell you that the health and wellness benefits are real!

I have always detested cardio work. The monotonous and repetitive action of jogging, swimming, or god help, me the treadmill or the elliptical. When I was younger basketball was the answer. I played so much that I was killing my own efforts to put on some muscle weight because of the calories I burned! I actually had a nutritionist do a full workup on me and explain to me that if I had any hope of putting on muscle weight at the rate at which I was playing basketball I would have to consume 4,000 calories a day! Basketball and sports like it are real calorie burners!

But it's a luxury to have an hour and a half to play basketball every day even if you are fit enough that your body can withstand it. I used to make jokes that my body had a semi pro basketball career. I used to play for an hour and a half to two hours five days a week for about five years. That was between the ages of 30 and 35 when I was hands down in the very best shape of my life. I can still go out and play a nice game of pickup but I don't think my body could put up with the playing schedule I had back in those days. So my new answer for cardio fitness these days is dancing!

My mother told me when I was a toddler that when The Beatles would come on TV I would get my older sister Diane’s attention and dance for her. “Dijanna, Dijanna, look!” I struggled to pronounce her name. And according to Mom I also struggled to do anything resembling dancing! It was a sort of rock from front to back mostly with my knees while my arms lay lifeless by my side. I watch my grandson these days and he is also working on a version of the Toddler Rock. It looks pretty cute when a kid does it but trust me when I tell you it's not gonna win any prizes at the high school homecoming! And sadly my dancing skills did not improve for several years to come. But that would all change one fateful Halloween.

In the seventies my other sister held a Halloween party. It was a costume party. I perfectly played the role of the obnoxious little brother at this party as I mocked every single costume that walked through the door. My sister's friends were like 13 and 14 years old and when the music started it was awful! This was the worst dancing bunch of teenagers I've ever seen in my life! With the exception of one dude. This guy was super cool! First of all he was brilliant at picking his music. All the stuff he danced to had a pretty easy and somewhat slower than average beat. And his simple move was just to tip his body from one side to the other as he reached the same-side arm out from his body and rhythmically snapped his fingers. Brilliant! He had perfected that age-old piece of advice. Less is more!

That became my signature move. It also became the beginning of my confidence on the dance floor. Within the next couple of years, like all of my pals, I was listening to Kiss, ACDC, Deep Purple and all the rock bands of the day. But I could also be caught frequently walking around with a boom box and listening to Earth Wind and Fire or Sly or Chuck Brown or Parliament and dancing to the beat. I'm guessing I don't have to tell you that I was living a double life. One in which you wouldn't be caught dead dancing, the other where you couldn't stop!

I was a frisky little kid and my schoolboy antics would land me in a little Baptist boarding school in central Virginia. Suffice it to say there weren't any strong dancers at the all male institution. But they did hold socials for which they would bus in girls from local boarding schools. This actually was very liberating when it came to social pressures. It's not like you were gonna run into any of those girls again during the school week and have them laugh at your dancing. So I danced for the fun of it and the amusement of my pals, and not in any way to look cool. My confidence grew. And I became quite the dancer as I got older. I was that guy at weddings and dance clubs. In my 30s in NY I would go downtown to the Limelight stand in line with the youngsters just to get into the club have a couple of drinks and walk out onto the dance floor and move like I had to get something out of me. It didn't matter if I had a partner or not! And I loved it.

Then I left New York and came back home to my hometown DC. That quietly became the end of my dancing for many, many years. Then, I got an acting job that required some salsa dancing. I've never really been a partners dancer and I wanted to be certain I could knock this dancing thing out of the park. I was cast in the role months before the production would start rehearsal and I found a salsa studio that I would attend to improve upon my very elementary skills. This is where the fun really starts!

I cannot more highly recommend dancing in a professional dance studio! You may prefer to take private lessons but I highly recommend you take a class. Everyone is so encouraging. And there's always someone in the class who is struggling more than you as well as someone to aspire to be more like! I went a couple nights a week and learned to really love my classmates. Then we would go out to socials and dance together and dance with other folks in the dancehall. I found myself reacquainting with that fun guy in my 30s who used to go to the Limelight. Sure it was awkward at first but I challenged myself I really started to have a blast. It was this rekindled love for dancing that opened the door to a lively social life. It was a ton of fun and a phenomenal way to stay in shape. Especially if you are couples dancing. All the fellows carried towels or bandanas in their back pockets during the class in order to wipe the sweat off. It really burned the calories! And it was also a really terrific time! Especially being post pandemic, I quickly learned how to be sociable again. And the best part is the goal was never any pressure to make a friend or find a date. The goal was to execute a dance move. Going to dance class started out as a work assignment but it ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made!

So yes, hit the gym and lift those weights. Smash that HITT class and build some muscle tone. But leave the treadmill for those folks who amazingly find it easy to do the same mundane thing for 45 minutes. Do yourself a big favor and look up a local dance studio and take a class. Hip hop, salsa, bachata, swing, jitterbug. Buy a good pair of dance shoes and, fellows, please bring a towel for your back pocket. Move your feet! Feel the beat! And have a blast!