Just Dance

I was very much enthusiastic when my across-the-hall neighbour rallyed me to join her for a yoga class in the area. Our destination: Pineapple Dance Studio.

From the moment I arrived at the facade and glanced in the fogged-up window of the ground-floor studio to see dancers in rehearsal, I felt like I was in a dance movie. Pineapple Dance Studio had me at hello (maybe even before that, the studio's very name had me convinced from the get-go). Thank goodness for Tess (said neighbour) because we were whisked inside and up a narrow flight of stairs to the studio where our class was happening. Next door, before we entered our room, a wild broadway-style rehearsal was happening. Absolutely stunning and inspiring to watch. I could get into this place, I thought to myself.

And then the class.

While I had known it would be a ballet/yoga/pilates fusion class, somehow in the heat of the moment, the blur of first introduction to the studio, I had forgotten. But I quickly remembered as we were led through a sequence of ballet positions (more like ballet meets yoga). Plie! Tendue! First! Fourth! While Tess told me this was more ballet than this class had ever seen (her face said it all when she looked over at me mid-sequence), I was sorta digging it. Well, of course I was terrified just a little bit, but I was open to learning new things. The spirit of the ballet sequence was very much in tune with yogic philosophy, always learning, always open to new movement, new space.

Once we settled into the yoga/pilates portion of the class, I was all warmed up and in a groove. Great pace, good energy. I almost burst out laughing a few times I was so happy to be in a totally new space.

It's a humbling experience to be thrown into an environment so unlike your regular routine. But that's exactly it, that's exactly life. Constancy in flux.

Namaste.