Dance and Other Things

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Last night while I was reading Aristotle or Plato, or one of those other dead philosophers that are making my Literary Criticism class hard to handle, I began to point my toes, and move my arms around. I was laying in bed reading and I probably looked like a floundering fish. But as soon as I was done with my little section of reading, I got up (closed my bedroom door so my boyfriend wouldn't get a glimpse of what I was doing) and I proceeded to dance. No music, no instruction, just moving my body around in a ballet/lyrical-esque way. I was wonderful. I haven't felt so free and just in tune with myself in a long time. It made me realize how much I miss my Zumba classes. But it also helped me realize how my muscles and my body have been trying to communicate with me. I have been having a really hard time trying to diet, I just can't get into it, especially where I live at Starbucks on campus sometimes (foreshadowing much). But I have been watching too much TLC and one of the shows that has captured my attention in a big way is Cheer Perfection. Partially because I couldn't sleep one night and that was what was on, but mostly because I have always been flexible, but never very strong and this idea of having the ability to be flexible and use my body to better express myself (more through the gymnastics portion) is definitely piquing my interest. I want to be able to move my body and really own it in a much different way than what I'm used too. When I was younger I used to be so jealous of the cheerleaders, not because they were popular (although when I was in middle school that would have been cool too) but because of what they could do with their bodies. How they could catapult themselves all over the place and just have complete agency. So while I have no interest in becoming an adult cheer-leader, I'm definitely going to be listening to my body more, stretching out while watching tv, and doing more strength training at the gym so I can finally master that elusive cartwheel... Happy Monday everyone!
~E