Yes, I did something that just last week I said I couldn’t do: I switched up unplugged night! Due to some scheduling issues that are interesting to absolutely no-one (including me), I opted to switch this week’s Unplugged Night to Tuesday instead of Wednesday.

A big part of that was that I decided it was finally time to get my ass back into a choreographed dance class. I mean, I’ve done two years of semi-choreographed NIA classes, but it’s been years and years and years since I took a dance class where you have to move your body like you’re told.

I did choreographed dance all through high school, mostly in the context of musical theater — which means jazz-influenced moves and never anything so complex that you couldn’t sing right through it. I did a year of tap training senior year of high school, but other than that my dancing has almost always been at concerts, clubs, raves, and NIA.

Embarrassingly, it was seeing that silly street dancing movie two times in a row that finally got me inspired to look up dance classes. I like to think I’m a decent dancer, but it’s a whole different thang when it’s not just shaking your ass however feels good.

So last night I walked down to Velocity Dance to take a class called “Bottom-heavy funk.” HA! Bottom-heavy funk!

Bottom Heavy Funk: A non-intimidating approach to hip-hop, street, club dance w/ Amy O’Neal
This class will begin with an integrated warm-up coming from Modern Dance, Yoga, and Jazz to build strength and ground the individual. Simple exercises in body isolation and rhythm will prepare us for funked out, bottom heavy, full-bodied, and intricate movement set to and completely inspired by hip-hop, soul, funk, and R&B music. This is an open class and will be geared toward the level of the majority of participants. Come prepared to be yourself, have fun, and get down and dirty.

It was basically a hip-hop/funk hybrid and was the perfect combination of crisp isolations and booty-waggling good times.

The good news: I’m in decent shape and was able to physically keep up.
The bad news: I still suck at learning choreography.

I had a couple fleeting moments of frustration, but reminded myself that the first class is always the most disorienting and tried to recognize the frustration for what it probably was, which was veiled laziness and resistance to being challenged to focus on a weakness. I will go back! And I will finally rock that turn with the body pop!

After dinner, I picked up a copy of The Stranger and strolled up the street to some new noodle house on Pike. It was only so-so (too expensive, weird clientele, bad acoustics) but my server was super cute and also named Ariel. Plus, I was just happy to sit quietly reading the paper and slurping on my overpriced udon.

Then it was back home for a shower and laying on the couch in sweatpants while Andreas tormented me by checking his email on the other couch. He redeemed himself with spousal snuggling before I drifted off to sleep.

On the whole, I feel like Unplugged Nights are getting easier. There’s not as much panic for me preparing to unplug, and the reinforcement is clear: when I woke up this morning, I had five emails. ONLY FIVE! I would have spent five hours online last night waiting for those five emails. Instead, I danced, noodled, and snuggled.