Stumbleina’s discovery…
October 25, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Polly wants to be a dancer.
stumbleina
Well, OK, not quite (she’d at least like to have a go at changing her physique more toward the dancer-end of the spectrum as opposed to say, the ‘athletic’ end).
This is a new discovery in Polly’s exercise repertoire. Heretofore, I have been officially a non-dancer having spent most of my sporting life in other realms (gym memberships, treadmill walking, outside strolling, largish weight-bearing repetitions, etc.). Not any more. For some reason (I can think of many, actually) about 2 months ago I made a change. I realized that I was craving a new way to move and after a solid NINE year stint with that daily regimen of treadmill walking and weight-lifting (gosh); it felt like the appropriate time to finally ‘move’ on. (Yes, you’d think I might have come around to this thought sooner. But no. Polly is stubborn. It takes quite a bit for me to finally go, ‘oh, alright then.’)
Polly has been doing three main things of late dance-wise:
- ballet exercises (courtesy of the New York City Ballet Workout Volume 1 DVD) with their inherent vocab of words like floor barre, plies, tendu, degage, passe, etc; words that sound lovely yet describe very specific vigorous muscle work;
- “no more than 3-lb weight” workouts courtesy of Ms. Tracy Anderson’s Mat Workout DVD;
- and a spot of Dance Cardio (again courtesy of Ms. Anderson with her high-impact stuff to get the heart-rate up).
Currently, Ms. Anderson’s Cardio Workout is sidelined while the Stumbleina paw gets back to full fitness (after all, I was in the middle of routine #3 when the foot originally gave out).
So, imagine it’s 4:27am; Polly is in her cozy living room (having pushed back small table and round squashy foot stool thing); Polly has popped in the DVD player her copy of either Ms. Anderson’s Mat Workout or the NYC Ballet; she has put down a yoga mat and hit play. Some 50 or so minutes later of leg stretches; various tummy crunches; maybe some ‘standing abs’ (huh?); and eons spent holding her arms outstretched; she is done.
I was sitting yesterday thinking how good that feels in my whole body (not just one or two areas which happens when variety in your treadmilling/weight lifting is a rarity). Not sure that I have the graceful ease aspect of the whole thing down (I am still a Stumbleina at heart); but I feel different and I like it.
Finally, a confession: I actually purchased the NYC Ballet DVD about 2 years ago (the seeds of a dance thought were sewn some time back, evidently); it has taken me all this time to undo the wrapping. Like I said, Polly is stubborn.
