Happy Dance, Dance Happy!

I forgot how much dance makes me happy. As much as I love and enjoy music, something about dance lifts my soul. I started out in a tumbling tots class when I was 3. It's not something that I necessarily asked to do. I think it was more that with a toddler and a baby my Mom wanted me to be in a few activities that were just for me. When I aged out of the classes my original studio offered I moved to a larger more diverse studio. I don't remember really making that decision either. I'm sure we talked about whether I wanted to continue dancing or not. When I got a little older I loved it and wanted to continue.
After those initial tumbling classes, I focused on Tap and Jazz. Like most things people love to do it was a lot of hard work and made a lot of sacrifices. All told I took classes for 13 years. Thinking back I had 2 classes at an hour a piece 2 times a week. That's not including performances, dress/show rehearsal's, plus all of the extra training leading up to show week. So that's 4 hours of classes 45ish weeks a year plus the weeks leading up to a show where we had classes all day for a seriously long time! It wasn't the only thing I did for all those years, I played CYO sports at school as soon as I was old enough and was in Girl Scouts from K through 12. But I loved dancing. All the time and hard work and pain totally was worth it. I never had dreams of becoming a professional dancer, never thought I could make some kind of career out of it. It was something I did simply for the love of it.
SYTYCD season 9 premiered Thursday that's what brought all of this up. I'm not a huge fan of reality tv but in the last few years with shows like that and ABDC and Dancing with the stars, dance is gaining a lot of recognition. Although some of it is silly and watching DWTS makes me cringe, the new interest and popularity of something that I loved and so touched a piece of me growing up, makes my heart happy.
Here are some performances that have particularly touched me......

     For reals, Holy F**king S**t. This made me cry, it was beautiful in its sincerity. Seriously, the chills!

                      This is simply titled Addiction.  Brings awareness in new ways. It's beautiful!

The fluidity of his movements and expressions are gorgeous.

The grace and emotions these 2 men share with the audience make me smile! And it HOT!!

I've spent way to much time sifting through dance video's on youtube so I'm going to leave it at these 4, I hope they touch your heart like they do mine :)