I dance in my room (like Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels haha) and I dance around the house and also have done youtube dance classes online but there’s something incomparable to dancing in a dance studio. And slowly as I danced, danced began to heal me.
One of my favorite goddess stories is a story of Oshun and the pumpkin patch, it’s the first goddess story I’ve ever heard, I haven’t shared it on this blog yet but the moral of the story is that what hurts you heals you and I feel like that’s at the part I am at right now.
See I was never given any leway as a Black dancer people looked to me to see if I knew had to move, copy my movements, or put me down. I guess I became a threat to the instructors. I’m just a woman trying to heal and I really wish that the beautiful safe container that they gave to others they gave to me.
Instead I had an instructor grind on me (that felt incredibly, incredibly violating).
One of the star instructors highlighted me when I did dance moves wrong.
It literally is like I was their “pick a part” Barbie.
Which I know it’s so easy to say “Okay, stop going.”
But not every class was bad.
Until it was.
And even then…I’m so embarressed to say this but I was (and still am) addicted to dance.
The movement.
The freedom (even in an oppressive environment).
The parts of me that were slowly coming together.
For once not feeling like the poor out of place (even though they really didn’t include me which I totally was okay with) kid who couldn’t afford dance classes or the 30+ almost 40 year old woman still trying to get her life back on track. I was just me.
Just me and the rhythm.
Me and the beat.
I had one instructor that I got close too and I’m not going to go into the details here because I’m still dealing with this internationally. I really wish she hadn’t structured any of the routines to me or given me any preferential treatment because it made me more of the target and now she’s been given the job of putting me down and taking me apart – which she does. The studio decided to “Blackball” me, or really the correct term is Buckbreaking because what they did to me is so much more gross than black balling and they used her to do it. Which is humiliating I’m sure for her too however at the end of the day it’s me along with broken music notes in my hands (and I know I’m waxing poetic vs. going into the details). But I want to keep my dignity and so in order to do that I’ll just cry quietly under the covers than writing about it on the internet…even though I’m somewhat doing it.
But back to Oshun, “What hurts you, heals you.” This woman reminded me who I was. She reminded me of my Texas roots. Both through belief in me and then pain.
Unfortunately an old wound of mine is that along my journey (I’ve traveled the country looking for a new vibration to break old family molds, to bring healing and in search of it in my body) I’ve met different teachers or guides along the way – literally my life could be a movie and it would make a good one. I used to be homeschooled and so I’m very “Self study”, very strong willed and not asking for any help however in my brokenness I’ve known to ask for it and sometimes I’m so weak and vulnerable that when other people see the potential in my powers and step in to shape them what usually happens is that they get too scared once they realize what my powers are and shut them down therby shutting me down in the process.
It’s the worst feeling in the world. I remember my very first coach had been there and opened my door to a spiritual awakening left me high and dry once she figured out that she was accepted within a group but I wasn’t because “I’m just too much.”
And the thing is I don’t know how to shut the too much down. Believe me, I’ve tried too. I know this sounds like an oxymoron but I’ve also tried to accept the too much parts all the while confused about what part of me is too much.
I wonder what it would be like to have someone see the way that people treat me and to literally not give up on me because of it. It’s not that I need a savor. I don’t, I have me. It’s just funny because I preach and talk about the soft girl life but I don’t think people understand how magical it is that I do that because I’ve been shown so much the opposite of it. I just decided to romanticize my journey.
Which leads me to tips, to solutions, because I don’t want this to be a post just of me complaining. Here are a few things that I’ve done to help my spirit as I try to recover from dance. I hope in some small way they can help you too because I wish dance classes, yoga classes, etc. were open relaxing spaces where women can connect but even when I tried searching for other spaces for myself to be I kept running into different “Off” experiences and walls. Last week though I encountered somewhere Beautiful. The owner of a new studio told me to stay away from the dance fitness places and she told me “Welcome home.” I don’t know how she knew that they were dangerous. But they shredded my soul. I’ve been crying for weeks. What they did and are doing is just that bad.
And I get frustrated because even when I tried something different like taking yoga by the sea – the student next to me went out of the way to make yoga hard for me instead of focusing on the entire OCEAN to her right?! It’s like do you know how many people would pay big money for this experience that we’re all getting for $20? It’s incredible.
Even in other dance places, I went to another dance studio that also offered twerk classes for example and it was the same damn thing – it was racial. The black instructor catered to the white students and I could tell she wanted to help me out (as a personal trainer you can pick up on other things) but whenever she came over to me I could tell the others felt like she was being exclusive. I could also tell that she was upset about how they other students were treating me in class but couldn’t do anything about it. And so I decided that if I’m going to go through the same experience as my old studio I might as well have it from someone I know and like their training style so I went back to the old studio and it was like a bomb went off.
The other students weren’t happy to have me back.
The managers were freaking out.
It was tense.
All I wanted to do was dance. Dance to me is like having a gorgeous flower in my hair and sometimes without dancing it feels like I’m without air.
Dance is meant to be freedom.
Expression.
I’m beyond glad of the one studio that I did find to dance at. It’s a much different type of dance though – so it’s not just a move your body to basic steps vs. heels on the pole which is definitely healing in the scariest but sexiest of ways – especially because my erotic energy is often beat from body which is frankly why I think I’m having so much trouble in these different dancing spaces. When I start to dance an erotic creature, a very sensual woman emerges and it scares people but I just don’t know how to stop the sensuality flowing through my body so I think it will be healing on that half but it’s also hard because it’s not a put on the music and move. Which as someone who struggles with basic motor skills sometimes you simply need basic dance on the floor, no choreography just simple steps to the music. And that’s been taken away from me.
So to the person reading this if you’ve ever been through a dancing saga like me I just want to say that I’m sorry. To paraphrase the famous line from Dirty Dancing “Nobody is ever supposed to put Baby in a corner and everybody is supposed ot have the time of the life.”
So to anyone who has ever been “”Put in the corner,” for being too sensual, too erotic, too timid, or even too much on the dance floor. This post is for you.
Here are 7 tips for still gifting yourself “The time of your life” while on the dance floor…