So You Think You Can Dance?

Yesterday was another jam-packed day. I really am not home that much during the day, and on the days I am I usually fill up the time. Yesterday's busy-ness was a blessing though because of some difficult news from a couple different places in my family. Everything will be okay, but I was a little numb and happy to have places to go. Pray for us. Please.

After a beautiful morning in the park visiting teaching and getting all the dish from our newly-engaged pal, I was home for a while, but I was sewing and visiting with one of my youthful, BYU-student friends. Then more sewing, then off to my piano lesson. I am not sure why I persist in that fantasy, but I do love my teacher-friend Carolyn. We have a great time together. Actually, I have learned so much about so many gospel principles from trying to re-learn piano. That would be another post, but in spite of my less than stellar natural ability in this area, I will persist. After my lesson at 1, I came home, checked on Evan (he got sick from his 11-year old booster shots on Tuesday) did a load of laundry, then went into taxi mode. Sara had piano at 3, then Evan an eye-dr. appt. at 5, Sam was done with practice at 6:15 then Sara had her first dance lesson at 7. And finally we get to the titular event.

Sara used to take ballet and she was very, very good at it. She had the right body style, was naturally flexible and had pretty hands without much effort. She was aggressively recruited for Ballet Royale's elite program but we never started because every single time it was time to go to Ballet, I had to rope her, kicking like a rodeo calf, into the car. The elite program was lessons 5 days a week. Can you imagine-the daily rodeo instead of the weekly? So not only did I not accept the position in the elite group, I gave up entirely because Mondays were starting to loom large and scary in my mind. It would take me a solid hour to get her out of the house and I got tired. Especially since the same battle was going on for school, for getting dressed, for eating, for going to bed...you get the picture. So no more dance.

Fast forward to now. Sara has continued to be interested in dance. We've been to see Riverdance and the Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, etc. We've been to see Wicked and we're trying to work it out to go see the SYTYCD tour in October. She's also been in a few shows. She started asking for lessons about a year ago or so, but I couldn't find a studio that had beginner classes for someone her age. She wanted to switch to jazz. A few weeks ago I got a postcard from Coreageous Dance Studio. It's a newly renovated studio in Savage Mill. They had a jazz class for 12-16 year olds-any ability level. I went over and signed her up. The proprietor-teacher is a darling woman named Adrienne who is realizing her dream of having a studio. Her folks are helping her out, even to the point of her sweet dad manning the phones. Very friendly, family kind of vibe. It turns out that because they are new, and the word is still getting out, that Sara has private lessons! She was so cute in her new leotard and gauchos and dance shoes. She put her hair in ponies and it looked like she had so much fun. I loved watching her move with such fun expression and natural grace. I have been worried about Sara finding a niche, and maybe this will be it. Maybe not, but she chose it so maybe now she is ready to make it her own. I hope so. She's tried many sports and instruments, but has never had a passion strong enough to motivate me to fight the fight. It will be difficult to get photos of her in action because she hates pictures right now, but I'll keep trying. She loved her lesson and came home sweaty and happy. Pure Joy.

BTW, this studio has dance classes for all ages and in all styles-ballroom, jazz, hip-hop, plus yoga and pilates. The website has a postcard you can print for a free lesson. Maybe I'll see you over there on the yoga mat.