I grew up in the world of the theater. Performing in plays since I was a kid, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else, and a time came when I decided to learn everything I could about performance art.
This included dance. At the time, I had no real dancing experience. Yeah, I had taken a few classes as a kid, but nothing to brag about. As a boy, dance was never at the top of my “to-do” list. “Dancing’s for girls,” I once thought, but things had changed significantly. I was embarking on a strict career path to entertain audiences, and despite my persistent reservations, I enrolled in tap and jazz classes at a local community college to see how far I could go.
It wasn’t an easy process; I had no idea what I was doing, and it was hard to learn all the steps at first, but over time, things remained fresh in my mind, and my shoes no longer felt like anvils.
Mentally, the exercise was fantastic. I was regularly learning new moves, and my memorization skills were working like the marimba. Even my schoolwork was improving; the mental challenges from the routines I was learning were making me more alert, and I was retaining information like never before.
Physically, the results were just as good. I had been a long and lanky kid most of my life. In elementary school, I was dubbed “the grasshopper” due to the long and skinny limbs I hadn’t yet grown into. I was “meatless” in many respects, and when you hear these things long enough, they take a toll on your self-esteem. Dancing was able to rid me of my former nickname and the physicality associated with it.
My legs, which up to that point had looked like cornstalks, were now getting bigger in the calf areas, and as time went by, things really seemed to be improving. I had washboard abs, my energy was up, and I was faster than I’d ever been. Stomping the ground in all those tap classes was creating some serious resistance, adding bulk I never even thought possible. The fast and speedy motions I was practicing had improved my cardiovascular health, and I was burning what felt like a thousand calories a day. After eight months, I was stronger and more toned than ever, and in the end, I was inspired to train for five years because at the heart of it all was something I really enjoyed.
Today, I engage in running, weightlifting, and martial arts to stay in shape, but if you’re ever serious about conditioning yourself to the fullest capacity, give the old dance floor a try, and chisel yourself into the physical form you’ve always wanted to be.
