Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Everybody Dance Now!

I love the idea of dancing. I love it so much that I took ballet classes for seven years. Not that I was any good; I am too lazy and too afraid of pain to make a proper commitment to dance. But I love to move to music, even if the movements are unpolished and uncoordinated. After all, I'm not earning a living from it am I? (Thank God.) My odd forays into the clubbing scene cemented this love; I just never got into it much due to practical reasons. Oh yeah. And also I am afraid of losing my hearing.

Children have an innate sense of rhythm and feels free to enjoy their exuberance of music, but we bred the enjoyment of dance out of them, especially the boys. Young males are brought up with the idea that dancing is for poofters and that it is unmanly. WRONG. Being a dancer is harder than being an athlete; you have daily training and conditioning, more punishing than many athletic regiment. Male dancers often lift weights; their movements require a great deal of strength. I love watching men dance; the symphony of their body and the beauty that they can express because of their strength is marvelous to behold.

Who could watch the old Fred Astaire movies and not wish that they could move like him?

I saw this on anniehow's LJ. She is right in how rewatching the video just kept the smile on her face. I think we were all born to dance. As we grow older, we grow more inhibited; we are scared of expressing ourselves with our body. We are too afraid of being thought foolish, we are too self-conscious of how other people perceive us. Watch this and see how delicious dancing can be, even if you are a stiff-kneed seventy year old.



Don't that look like fun? Next time you find your feet tapping to some beat, let your body flow along with the music. Who cares if you look like a reject from Dancing with the Stars? Just enjoy the endorphins.

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