Finding Joy in Dancing

Welcome to the Finding Joy series! Here I will be sharing activities that help me to find joy in my life despite whatever my current situation may be. My hope is that you can also find joy in your life. Whether it be through any of these activities I share, or hobbies and experiences that you love. 

If you follow me on social media, you have seen how much I love dancing. It runs much deeper than just a fun way to burn some calories, although it did start that way. Dancing actually has many more benefits than that. Check this article out to learn more.

In The Beginning

Do y’all remember the game Dance Dance Revolution? Thinking back that is what started it all. Then later Just Dance started to takeover when I got a Wii system one year for Christmas. Sometime when I was in high school I decided to try a Zumba class. Unfortunately, I didn’t love it as much as being alone in my living room dancing along to the Wii. The story doesn’t end here though.

College Life

In my third year of college, after transferring to a four year school, I decided to try group classes one more time. To my surprise, I loved it! I started going to almost every class that was offered and soon added hip-hop into the mix. The next two years I began to get busier with school and extracurricular activities and had less time to go to dance classes.

The first time that I found out just how much dancing impacted my mental health was in my final year during a Zumba-thon. I hadn’t been to a class in a long time and I was in a deep, dark depression. I had a lot of other things to do so I almost didn’t go but there was something in me that knew I needed to go. Leaving that night I almost cried because I just felt so much peace and happiness in my heart that hadn’t been there in a long time.

Post-Grad

Life was great after college for a while. Not having access to go to dance classes regularly impacted me a lot more than I realized. I finally had enough and decided to find some way to bring dancing back into my life. I reached out to a Facebook group to ask if there were any dance channels on YouTube that they would recommend. That is where I was introduced to Live Love Party and The Fitness Marshall. Then
later, through my research, I found REFIT. I began my Love Sweat Fitness journey last summer and was introduced to another dancer that had a Youtube channel, Ali Rose. Dance was finally back in my life.

The Present

As I’m writing this it has been a week since I had a depression episode again. That whole week I just felt empty. I hardly got off the couch, ate way too much junk food, and only worked out twice. Want to know what those two workouts were?

If you guessed dancing, you are correct. It felt so good to know that I did something positive when I didn’t feel like doing anything. At the end of that Saturday workout I was starting to feel a lot better. This reconfirmed my reason why I make a favorites dance playlist when creating my dance playlists each month.

As a special bonus I wanted to share with you a few of my favorite routines.

1. Throw A Fit: The Fitness Marshall

2. Heat: The Fitness Marshall

3. Invincible: REFIT

4. Banga Banga: Live Love Party

5. I Got You: The Fitness Marshall

6. Hunter: REFIT

7. Hasta Lleugo: Live Love Party

8. This Is Me: REFIT

Dancing is the type of exercise that makes me happy, but I know that it isn’t for everyone. I believe it’s important to find a type of exercise that makes you excited on most days and feels doable on those days where you are feeling down. Whether that’s running, strength training, cycling, etc.

I’d love to know what your favorite type of exercising is. Let me know in the comments, and if you know of any other dancing channels on YouTube tell me those as well. I love trying out new routines.