Gimme that Spark

W&WW:

Highlight

Spotlight

Stobe light! 

Just over the Bay Bridge and tucked into the foot hills of Berkeley, a hot pink sign glitters above the sidewalk with the sprawling words: Hipline. Fitness. Belly Dance.  If you're feeling courageous and push through that pearly glass doorway to follow the filigree lined stairwell to the second floor, you indeed enter into another world.  A world filled with neon and jangles, curves and pop star personalities.  No kidding.

Now, I've never taken a dance fitness class per se, aside from a ballet class in college in which I was forced to laugh myself through to avoid crying.  Coordinated, choreographed dancing in a well lit studio, fully sober can be a slightly intimidating opportunity.  Particularly if you have flashbacks to some traumatizing dance class memory you thought you'd never have to deal with again.  Well, I'm here to tell you, deal with it and get over it at hipline.  Why?  Because you don't have to be a "dancer" you just have to know how to have a good time, and laugh because you're feelin good (not because you're humiliated!)...

I had heard rave reviews about Hipline since I moved to the Bay area two years ago and while I always thought about signing up, I was nervous.  Mirrors+ skinny white girl +hip coordination & looking "sexy" or whatever= maybe next month.  BUT, everyone seemed to be having a fun time there.  I mean, a lot of fun.  The kind of fun that is infections and makes it into their personality and sends a glow around someone.  I wanted that glow.

Enter November.  I am finished with my 30 Day Dailey Challenge and I find myself ready to mix it up a little.  Aside from my sheepishness in a dance class, don't get me wrong, I love love love dancing.  Sometimes, if I'm needing a pick-me-up, I'll blast some music and have a solo dance party.  Although I haven't mastered any break dance moves, some favorite pass times include wedding crashing on the dance floor, lip-syncing, and winding myself with my own spastic dance moves.

Its hard to get into a Hipline classes - I had signed up on a wait list for this class several weeks ago and so when I got the green light last night that I had gotten into the class I had no excuse.  I have to admit, when I trudged my sleepy wheels across the Bay Bridge to make it to Deb's early morning class in the cold, dreary morning mist, the last thing I could imagine was having a dance party to LMFAO and Beyonce.  I told myself dancing will warm me up. Dancing is fun. I love fun.

What I wasn't prepared for was however, was the fact that I was entering the best hour of my week, and perhaps the most fun work out of my life.  For the next hour, fumbling behind several rows of women, I jumped into a wild, hot, calorie-burning dance party.

Although I can't say I was the most coordinated or graceful, soon I just didn't care what I looked like because no one cared.  There was no right, no wrong, no do-overs or judgmental furrowed-browed perfectionists.

The tenor, energy and choreography of the class was led by a fabulous, belting, leaping, pounding, howling, lounging and swooning dancer named Deb, and I am in awe of her.  Not only does she (like most dancers) make the moves look easy, but somehow she her manor of teaching is so disarming and inviting that it seems that anyone could booty grind along.  As if the secret to becoming a world-class MTV dancer would really just be about having a good time.  Well, hell, I can do that.

I forgot how important it is to sweat, to breath like you mean it, to feel your bones and muscles expand with power and energy.  Every woman in the room was howling with laughter.  Soon, as my bangs were glued to my forehead and my pants pushed up around my thighs, panting and grinning, I realized why Deb's classes were so hard to get into.  I wanted what each woman moving next to me wanted. I wanted that spark.  A spark is different than a twinkle or glimmer.  A spark is hot and bright and brief, but igniting.   That charge of life that permeated the small mirrored room under a little disco ball. Most women in that room were not "dancers" and we followed in hopes and efforts to capture a bit of that spark that lights Deb up from the inside out.

Wrapped in an inspired glow, I followed the filigree down the stairwell to the street after class with a newfound exhilarating discovery here on the Eastern edge of the bridge.  Hipline's a gem and I cannot wait until the bruises on my feet go down so I can elbow my way back into that jangle of shimmy pop madness.

Until next time! Hup Hup stay low, stay looooww! Breathe!

  Lydia