My Secret Dance Workout
There was a point in my dance career where I was sick and tired of looking like an asthmatic smoker at high elevations during the final rounds of a competition. When a judge mentioned to a friend of mine that I should quit smoking (I’m not a smoker), that was it – I needed to change my strength and conditioning program.
Side-note: When you love dancing, as I’m sure you do, you begin to notice that you have a freepassat the buffet line, dessert isle, and anything elseincarb-heaven. Dancers, through dancing, have earned that. Unfortunately in my case, that just allowed me to “stay skinny” but didn’t do much for strength building.
I decided to go all out: the gym, dumbells, barbells, one of those weight vests, plenty of sleeveless stretchy shirts, and, oh yeah…
… leg weights.
A few weeks in and I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough fitness in my life – or my practice schedule. So I decided to infuse weight training with my normal work day (teaching lessons). So I used, you guessed it..
… leg weights.
I strapped a pair of 10 pounders on and kept them on throughout the day, “wow this is really working!” It was great, and with a sleek design, they were my own fitness secret. My slacks showed no sign of the 20 pound workout happening “behind the scenes.” I started the Thursday night group class with the usual cast of characters. You know them well:
- The Academics: hanging on every technical word and description
-
The Newcomers: hanging on every partner that they have
-
The Socialites: think “cocktail party” minus the cocktails and insert a group class
-
The Comedian: Class clown – typically my right hand man/woman in a group class
We start the class and things get off to a great start. A new swing combination, a few jokes, and we’ve got momentum. I field a question from one of the Academics and have everyone separate so I can demonstrate the figure. People clap, I enlist a demonstrator, and show the group the next part of the combination. Then it happened…
“THUD!”
Out from under my slacks falls a black 2 pound weight insert. Everyone, especially me, is frozen. I’m not trying to be crude but what would you do if a black, narrow, two pound object with rounded edges just fell out of the pant leg of your dance teacher.
Cue the Comedian, “OK, funny man, explain that!” I gasped for a response but my quick wit was apparently weighed down by, you guessed it…
… leg weights.
Aside from the Comedian, everyone was in a frozen stand still just staring at this foreign object in the center of the dance floor. Just as the 3 shade blush wore off and I had worked together an explanation…
“THUD, THUD, THUD!”
Three more inserts out, huge laughter, more blushing, Comedian has material for the next calendar year. My secret weight training mission was an epic failure… and just sharing this makes me feel like a weight was lifted off my leg.
Happy Dancing,
Chris
Chris Lynam is the CEO of Line of Dance Inc. and the co-owner of three successful Arthur Murray dance schools. When he isn’t dancing, teaching, blogging, designing, training, or husbanding – he loves spending time with his two beautiful children, Christian and Olivia and his dog, George.
