Shake it if you've got it!

A long, long time ago, I used to be a shy, bookish, quiet, self-conscious, clumsy, chubby youngster. (Pause for snorts of incredulous laughter to die down...) Unless it involved walking outside to sit on the porch and read, or maybe sneaking into the kitchen for a between-meals cookie, I nursed a severe exercise allergy. Yet somehow I ended up in dance classes. (Perhaps my mother thought to trick me into getting some physical activity by emphasizing the sparkly leotards..and feathered tiaras. I mean really, who can resist a tiara?) I took tap and ballet for several years, and of course participated in the recitals. I remember my mom spray-painting my shoes silver as required for the costume...I can still feel the the itchy sequins and the ultra-wedgie that darn bodysuit gave me. (We were learning at a young and tender age: beauty = sacrifice...and the secondary but equally vital lesson: "no picking at your underwear on stage"!)

Anyway, somewhere in my adolescence I discovered my inner athlete (finally) and added regular workouts to my life. At this point it's accurate to say that fitness is an integral part of my personality--I don't think about it, I just do it. (Yeah, that's me, a Nike commercial...without all the dripping sweat...oh, or the super-buff bod!) That's not to insinuate that I just LOVE my training plan; walking, running, biking, lifting weights can all get tedious. (However, I do adore food, and also have a bit of a chocolate...fetish, I mean appreciation...therefore I accept that I've got to put in the calorie-burning time.) So a couple of years ago I stumbled onto an adult (wait for it) HIP HOP class that I just had to try. Let me tell you, it is not your grandma's kind of dancing! Pink, or Katy Perry, or Kanye, or the Black Eyed Peas blast from the stereo, and we strut, and shimmy, and body roll, and wiggle our hips to the beat as we learn the choreography for each new song. (I always joke that I'm "releasing my inner Beyonce"...and who would have guessed that this 40-something suburban mom even had one of those?)

Don't get me wrong, there are times when I wonder whether I'm quite funky enough to pull this off. Like today, when we started a new dance to the tune Like a G6. True Confessions time: I had no earthly idea what that term meant.  (Of course I Googled it to find out--does that make me hipper? or just nerdier? Either way, I felt much better when the other, similarly-aged, non-club-going moms in the class admitted to doing the exact same thing.) Then the lady next to me informed us that she'd also looked up the word "slizzard" at the request of one of her kids. When the search engine promptly spit out the definition ("being high and drunk at the same time"...just charming) she did what any of us would do in that situation: immediately shut down the page and told a bold-faced lie ("oh, it's a kind of lizard, honey!").

Okay, so we might never be ready to perform as backup dancers on the MTV Awards show...still, for this one hour of the week, we certainly do get our groove on. It's by far my favorite workout, even if there are no tiaras...yet!