Dance It Off, Yo!

So I took a foray into the world of cheesy workout DVDs today.

I was going to just do the Wii Fit as usual (if you count my rather sporadic habits of using it recently as "usual"), but then I remembered this workout DVD that I acquired some four years ago called "Dance It Off!"  Yes.  Weight loss through dancing.  I've used this DVD a couple of times before, but I've never really had the space (or the solitude) to really be able to do the workouts without falling into a dresser or being mocked by passerby.  But, now I have a single-person apartment with a wide space in the middle of the main room, and no excuse not to get my groove on.  Maybe it's because my friends and I watched "Center Stage" last night, or maybe I  just wanted a change from the Wii Fit exercies...but I decided that dancing for exercise was the way to go.

Let's just say that I'm happy that there was no one around to witness the event.

But it WAS fun...although I'm an absolutely horrible dancer (something I was already well aware of), I am able to laugh at myself, and that happened frequently and made the general workout experience much more entertaining.  The DVD has 4 dance routines, including hip-hop, latin, jazz, and ballet.  Since hip-hop was the first one listed, that's the one I chose.  I'll let you all just rest for a second, picturing me hip-hop dancing.

Yeah.  There isn't a drop of hip-hop in my blood.

My little sister has always been oddly hip-hop, and we've never quite known where it came from.  She probably has this double life dancing in hip-hop groups on the streets.  In any case, I was generally falling all over myself.  Also, that funky bouncey-ness that you always see in hip-hop some how evades my suburban white girl persona, and I bounce more like an excited child than like someone who's dropping it like it's hot.  After the general hip-hop experience, I opted for the ballet routine, which is WAY more up my alley.  Not that I'm good at it (flexibility has never been my strong suit), but I had my fair share of pliees and feet positions back in the Color Guard high school days.  And ballet uses all these French phrases like "rond de jambe" that make me feel all important and experienced because I understand them.  I may not be the most graceful person in the world, but I made it through the ballet routine as well.  Toss in a warm-up and a cool-down (in their appropriate chronological positions), and I was WELL worn out by the time I decided that I'd had sufficient exercise for the day.  Even dancing horribly is a workout, it would seem.

So anyway, I just wanted to let you all know of my dancing adventures of the evening.  For your enjoyment, please refer to these clips from the DVD to better picture how ridiculous I looked doing these various dance moves.  If you know me at all, you will appreciate the mental image.