Eternity Kind of Love: Doing Something I Love

I forgot how much I love to teach.

Okay so I didn't "forget", but I haven't taught a full dance class in around 2 years.

Thanks to a friend through Real Estate, I was connected with a highschool dance teacher who is allowing me to come and teach every so often. My first time was Wednesday.

Tuesday, Josh was working and I had some things to get done, then in the evening I had my Holiday Work Party at the casino. They had a really nice buffet, music, dancing, and a 2 drink minimum. It was fun, but the majority of us ended up at a local watering hole afterward. I stayed for awhile and had another drink or two and headed home. I couldn't fall asleep because of how excited I was and when I did fall asleep I woke up an hour and half before my alarm went off. I think it was a combination of nerves and worrying I wouldn't hear my alarm.

I got up early, got changed, and headed out the door. When I arrived the teacher came to get me and we headed through the schools hallways to the gym and then down to the dance studio. The studio was so nice! It was even larger than my "upstairs" dance room at my dance studio. I can't say that I didn't get jealous of how fortunate they are. I made sure to stress this to them and let them know they should not take this for granted.

I stretched ahead of time and when the first class arrived the teacher introduced me and then let me talk about my experience. I gave the same 'ole speach each time. I joined gymnastics when I was about 8 years old because my parents thought I was a klutz; that's probably because I was. Once I started I added on dance and competed in both. I took to dance a lot more and by my senior year I was in 17 routines for my recital. I told them about auditioning for the Radio City Rockettes twice, and from there I introduced the style.

We were to learn lyrical jazz, since they had been working solely on jazz the past few weeks. I explained how lyrial (lyrics) is meant to tell a story and it's a great way to express yourself. It's personally one of my favorite styles. I asked them if they were a fan of Adele and of course they were and I then informed them we would be dancing to 'Set Fire to Rain'. They all were quite excited.

We did a quick warmup and then I had them show me the jazz routine they had been working on. Afterwards, we got right to learning the choreography I had prepared. Going in to it I was nervous about difficulty and what they could do so I choreographed 3 similar dances with a step up in complexity in each one. That seemed to work really well. All 6 classes learned and loved it. They all got about a minute into the song in the matter of a 35-45 minute class. Not bad.

They all seemed to love it and the teacher now wants to use this dance as their mid-term "exam". I'm thrilled! It's such a great feeling being back to this. I've been invited back to teach a hip hop class in January and I'm nervous all over again for that, but if I've proved anything to myself in doing this..I'm great under pressure. =)

It feels so good to be back to it...and with that I would like to show you a few pictures from my dancing/teaching days. Enjoy!