My Big Dance Day Adventure July 31st – Metabolism Test and Salsa Love « Ballet

My Big Dance Day Adventure July 31st – Metabolism Test and Salsa Love

Aug 21st, 2010 | Posted by Bonnie

Today’s been a mixed bag. I finished my linear algebra exam, so I should be jumping for joy, but there’s still a mountain of work ahead of me. Worse I injured my knees and hamstring, so no jumping or exercise for me.

The bright spot is I have some time to post this… It’s a bit late… but I want to share my big dance adventure with you. July 31st was National Dance Day as declared by Mr. Nigel Lythgoe from “So You Think You Can Dance.” I made a decision to not work on that day and reward myself by exploring anything dance related!

(Side note: does anyone know if National Dance Day ever became officially recognized?)

Waking Up At 6AM…

The day started out at 6 AM with a metabolism test. The test tells you how many calories you burn at rest (or as I call it the couch potato calories), your aerobic and anaerobic threshold, your muscle fiber type, etc.

10AM… Dancing starts for real!

After that I ran my butt over to Ballet Class at Seattle Pacific Northwest Ballet. I love walking into PNB. I feel like I’m a real ballet dancer when I go there. And I love seeing all the posters of their upcoming productions. I can pretend that I’m in those productions

11:30AM.. Class ends. Time for lunch and to pick up my friend to pick up his bike

I want my own bike too !

Woah and it was already late afternoon! How time flew.

6:30 PM BBQ Bday!

Party time – Time to head over to one of my dance mate’s bday party. I’m an awful person – I totally forgot to bring her her gift.

9PM Salsa Time!

This is my first time at Century Ballroom, a swing and salsa club in Seattle. Salsa is an entirely new and different experience for me. With Ballet, everything is very structured and choreographed. At my level, it’s all group exercises.

With Salsa, I’m actually dancing with a partner. It feels like I’m in a performance already! Dancing at the Salsa club was very unique. It’s a lot more improvisational and there’s a huge range in levels. One second I might be dancing with a beginner like me and the next I could be dancing with a Salsa masta.

I met so many people that day. Even though, I was totally new to Salsa everyone was very nice and danced with me. The key though is you have to put yourself out there. I’m a Salsa newb, but I was ready to dance and I had a blast. I also learned a lot by watching and asking my dance partners to show me stuff. I even got to show one of my partners a thing or two !