Come Dancin'

Yes, I'm using my blog to shamelessly promote the dance classes I'm teaching this fall. Mama needs a new pair of shoes (actually new car tires and home siding - whoohoo, I'm a party animal!), and as entertaining as this blog may be, it ain't payin' the bills - so indulge me for a moment.

If you know of a middle- or high-school dancer wanting to take fun and fast-paced pom, jazz or hip hop classes from someone who has a pretty good track record with dance team instruction, I'm teaching Monday and Tuesday nights starting Sept. 2 at Briscuso Dance Studio in Manchester. You can check out all the info and the complete schedule here.

And, I'd love to teach an adult hip hop class, but I need at least five or six people who can attend regularly before I can set up the class - so if you're interested, let me know. It's fun and a great workout - and only mildly painful. Usually.

To Dance, Perchance To Run Offstage Crying

So Princess Elizabeth just had the dress rehearsal for this week's dance recital. She's an old pro - this is her second year - so not only did she bust a move with her dances ("The Mickey Mouse March" for tap and the "Princess Tea Party" for ballet - how perfect is that?!), she also decided to act as director. While she was dancing.

As she's tapping and pirouetting along, she's calling out directions to all her classmates: "Brooke, go down now!", "Anna Ruth, stop crying!", "Lacey, skip that way!" Never mind that she's spending most of her time looking at her teacher in the wings calling out the steps. Apparently, she felt that even though she might need a little help remembering the routines, her classmates obviously needed more assistance than the teacher hiding backstage could adequately provide.

I guess I should be embarrassed that Princess Bossy Britches was ordering everyone around the stage, and I was (a little), but actually, it was just too dang funny for me to get very worked up about. Yes, I did have the obligatory Momspeak "concentrate on your steps and not anyone else's" conversation with her afterward. But seriously, she's five, and it was funny - and heck, I'm just happy she stayed up on stage the whole time and didn't run off sobbing hysterically like poor Anna Ruth did at the mere thought of leading the group in the skip circle.

Hey, I didn't say the Princess was a particularly good director - but she was way cuter than Steven Spielberg ever thought about being. Check out the curls that she spent all night sleeping on foam rollers to get - Martin Scorsese's got nothin' on my baby.

Shake What Your Mama Gave 'Ya

Lord help us all, I'm teaching dance again.

My dear friend Julie - who owns Briscuso Dance in Ballwin with her mom - lured me back with the promise that she would neither post embarrassing video on YouTube nor blackmail me with photos of how big my tush really is.

So, if any of y'all have ever wanted to channel Beyonce, check out the Monday at 6 p.m. Hip Hop class. Be warned - this is old school hip hop - mainly because I'm too rusty to try to do anything but revive what I once knew. I'm working my way up to the new stuff - and just praying I don't break anything getting there.

If the thought of putting on a leotard and dancing in front of a mirror gives you heart palpitations, then come to my Wednesday 8 p.m. class - I'm calling it Move 'N Groove just 'cause I can't think of anything else to call it. It's for all of us who are flabby from babies, desk jobs, or just a reluctance to sweat - we're just going to put on some good music, turn away from the mirrors (like I want to look at my fat thighs in the mirror - girl, please!), and start gettin' our groove back. No particular style - a little of this, a little of that - whatever gets us up and moving again.

No experience in dance is needed at all. Also, no leotards or even particularly tight clothes are required - and no perfectly toned little bodies are allowed. Cellulite is the only requirement for this class - and maybe a desire to dance to something other than the Doodlebops. Ugh. No Doodlebops, I swear.

Give it a try - I promise you'll have a good time. I may be old, flabby and totally out-of-shape, but turn on some music, and I'll get us all shakin' it and laughing while we do it.

And of course, if you explain the...ahem...possible fringe benefits of getting your groove back to your significant other, he might just fall all over himself to take care of the kids while you take the class. Men are so easily motivated.

Go Big Or Go Home

Fair warning: I'm in a bad mood...seeing great opportunities thrown away ticks me off.

I just caught Britney Spears' "comeback" performance opening the MTV Video Music Awards - somebody help this child.

Granted, she could never sing, but she used to be able to entertain the heck out of a crowd - she was a great dancer, she was smart enough to surround herself with even better dancers, and most of her production numbers were fantastically choreographed. This VMA performance was supposed to jump-start her career, stalled by a few years of trashy weddings, back-to-back baby making, bad parenting, panty-missing escapades (seriously, what woman goes around commando, especially in a short skirt - eeewww!). If her publicist and agent thought they'd had to work hard to this point to salvage dear Brit's career, they were probably crying in the bathroom after her performance tonight, calling home frantically to say, "Please don't make me go out there and try to defend that!"

It was bad...BAD...BAAAADDDD. Horrible song, hideous outfit barely covering a terribly out-of-shape body, botched lip-synching - and the most tragic from my point of view - pathetic dancing. If you're going to get up on that stage in front of a worldwide audience, you better bring it - and clothe it in a designer outfit - and shake what yo mama gave ya.

(And no one whine to me about how rough Britney's had it lately - the chick makes $700,000 A MONTH - she can afford personal trainers, nutritionists, therapists, stylists and choreographers to attend to her every need, get her as healthy as possible, and help her find her spark again.)

Told you I was in a bad mood.

Anyway, maybe that's the problem - maybe, Britney, you need to get away from all the stuff that comes along with all that money - the possessions as well as the hangers-on who will tell you anything you want to hear as long as you pay them for it. Go home...go back down south to Louisiana...live quietly for a while...learn to parent your precious little boys...go find out why God has blessed you so much and why you're so determined to (consciously or subconsciously) destroy it all. Go find out what you really want, and then go after it - I mean really go after it.

And while you're at it, honey, find your panties.

What's In Your Bones?

I did something today I haven't done in a long time - I judged a cheerleading competition - and for the first time in a long time, I felt totally in my element.

Well, okay, not totally. Full disclosure - as a former dance team chick, I was a smidge out of my element...but while I never tumbled or stunted, the basic concepts are the same. I can judge a cheer routine for overall elements - synchronization, crowd appeal, creativity, and showmanship - and leave the really technical stuff to judges with the cheer background.

But I digress - my point is, it just felt so good to be back in that whole cheer/dance team world again. Pre-princesses, I was blessed enough to travel all over the world dancing. I danced and cheered at some of the most amazing games the Arkansas Razorbacks ever played in football and basketball. I was honored to spend ten years with the group that's the gold standard for high school, college and all-star dance teams - Universal Dance Association. I even spent a few years as choreographer and coach for a couple of St. Louis high school teams, and we had a pretty good track record.

(For those of you thinking "what the heck is this dance team thing she's talking about?" check this out - or if you're a fan of "So You Think You Can Dance?" it's like the opening numbers, but with more synchronization.)

Anyway, here's what I'm really trying to say - I feel dance in my bones. It's just home to me. It's something that I feel supremely comfortable with and confident in - I know it, I know how to do it, I know how to fix it if it's not working - and having that feeling with something you do is just amazing. To me, it's as natural as breathing.

PR is not natural to me. I'm comfortable doing it, and I'm confident in my abilities, but I've had to work really hard at it - and I still work hard at it every day. I love that PR makes me push myself and grow professionally, but I don't know that I'll ever have the comfort level that I had - and I think always will have - with dance. Every dance I create or clean is a new challenge, and it's hard work, but it's work I know in my soul I can just do. I can't explain it, other than to say it's in my bones.

What's in your bones? For what activity do you have that kind of comfort level? What do you feel you were born to do?