Why I Started Dancing Classes | Jennifer Scott Dance School

Hello!

I hope you're all doing well, I know it's been a while since I last posted anything here. If you didn't know, I started a new blog over at A Gentle Gail. I'll be posting about sustainabiltity, conservation and environmentalism over there, but I thought I'd keep this blog to talk about the fun and dorkier things in my life!

As always, there's been a few new developments in my life. I won't go into detail about them all in this post, I feel like a lot of what I do ends up being a yearly summary. Instead, I thought I'd let you know about a new hobby I took up in January. Dancing! But not just any dancing. Ballet and Hip Hop/Commercial.

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be a ballerina. In fact, the first job I ever remember wanting was, and I quote; "a famous ballet teacher". That catch, however, is that I wanted to be fully self taught. Don't ask me how I planned to do any of that. I didn't tell my parents that I wanted to be a ballerina, and so I never took up the sport.

Fast forward to the start of this year. I've been feeling quite down and isolated. I decided to take a leap, and so dug out my laptop and began looking for adult ballet classes near to where I live. This year, I've been focussing on my inner child, and I knew little Gail would love to be able to call herself a ballerina. Luckily, I found one. So, I reached out and arranged a trial lesson. I loved it, so I've been going almost every week.

The school I go to is called Jennifer Scott Dance School, ran by Jennifer. I've really been enjoying the lessons. I don't get many chances to socialise, and I can struggle with new social situations (I've written about my generalised anxiety disorder before.) Everyone has been understanding, and it's fun getting to go to the lessons, practice some ballet and not take myself too seriously. At the start of the new term, Jennifer also announced a variety of new and exciting classes, which included Hip Hop/Commercial and Contemporary.

At this point, I'm sure you all know how much I love Korean singer/rapper CL. I've dreamed of being able to dance like her for about 8 years now. So the introduction of the Hip Hop/Commercial classes set little blinkers in my mind that told me I needed to go along. So I do. We don't dance to CL at these classes, but we do dance to some popular songs. You can see my terrible attempt in the video above!

I struggle with being completely unco-ordinated. I can't make my legs and arms move at the same time without a wild amount of confusion, and I'm currently having some difficulties with my left hip (I think it's because nearing 30.) But the classes are helping me with my co-ordination, even if it is slow. At the start of the year, I couldn't do a turn at ballet, now I'm starting to manage to achieve one! I'm still struggling with my spotting, but it's one challenge at a time. I've also noticed that if I'm ever needing to run somewhere, I'm able to run a fair distance before needing to walk - something I've never been able to do!

I'm not sure what else I can say about dancing really. I never thought I'd actually take it up, I always saw myself as a fencer or a martial artist, but dancing seems to be my kind of sport. I'm glad I started going along. It's helping me build a weekly routine, and giving me the opportunity to socialise again after it was taken away by covid.

I guess to summarise this post, I want to say that if you're currently sitting there and thinking to yourself "I really want to do this thing but I'm not sure...", then you should hop onto Google and look for classes or courses near you. There's no harm in looking or sending in an enquiry. You never know, it might change your life.

Until next time, be excellent to each other.