Dark and Cold Nights

For a few reasons, I’ve moved all my dance lessons to daytime hours. It does leave my evenings open but I’m finding that once it starts to get dark, I have no interest in venturing outside. I don’t even like having to go pick up the mail. 

Its the difference between summer and winter. In the warmer months of the year, the evenings just beg you to get outside and enjoy the coolness when the sun goes down. Even if it is just to drive to the studio, it feels welcoming. For me, winter nights are just the opposite. Dark and cold and somewhat foreboding. Add in any rain or snow and it just feels safer to stay inside where it is warmer. 

The downside is that I do miss out on the social parts of the studio world. The group classes and parties are a way to get out and see and connect with your dance people. Now, I was intentionally missing them due to the calf injury but I’m over that enough that I could handle either one. It is just that it means venturing out in the unwelcoming cold and darkness. Haven’t felt like crossing that bridge yet. 

And we are in for a trip to the Arctic this weekend as really cold weather settles in for a bit. Going to make it that much harder to want to go out in the evening. It will be hard enough to want to go out during the day. 

We worked on the Rumba, Tango and Fox Trot today. Was doing the rise and fall with the Fox Trot with no pain in the calf. This is good news. I will have rust to shake off the other dances because it has now been almost two months since we’ve worked on some of them but it felt good to be back to normal.

Last year, my main focus was on the routines so I could get the big award. After these first few lessons, I do have some new goals but, like all my goals, they are a little bit fuzzy. There are some technical things that I know I need to improve but there are some performance things I also want to work on. Basically, I want to be someone who you feel compelled to watch when I’m on the floor. And that is kind of funny given my introverted nature and how I typically don’t seek the spotlight. We’ll see how it goes.