End-of-year thoughts

First, a confession: I am, apparently, the kind of person who enjoys Latin-dance-themed workout videos.

For a long time I was a bit of a snob about video dance instruction. I wanted the real thing, not some workoutified, sweatified, neonified version of real dance. I didn’t want to do lunges in the middle of a merengue, nor did I think that exercise instructors had much to tell me about hip movement.

This evening, though, after days of gorging on heavy Christmas food (hello, fondue! why hello there, Sauerbraten!), it felt like the right thing to do to wake up my muscles. So I pulled this cheap-o German DVD, Latin Dance Workout, from my shelf. It cost about five Euros, and might have been truly terrible. But it wasn’t.

I mean, there were almost no explanations of steps, it was fast-paced, and at a few moments a bit hectic. You could tell they were determined to film in one shot, whatever small mistakes happened. But it was also led by a Brazilian trainer who can really dance, Lucas Correia Freitag, most of the moves were fun and dancey enough, and after it was all done I felt as though all my joints had been pulled apart and reassembled in a more logical manner. My mood too.

So my thought for the new year is that I should not overthink this dance and movement thing. I’ve tried working towards goals and organizing my dance practice and thinking about how to improve. It doesn’t lead to much but guilt.

Maybe I need to bring my expectations all the way down to zero, and just do whatever feels right in the moment: dance, or yoga, or stretching, or weights. Ten minutes or forty minutes. Whatever works.

The same goes for this blog, which I neglect because I have the desire to write long, detailed, useful reviews and posts. I’m wondering if I can do shorter posts now and then, and just put them out into the world!

So, what are your ideas for how to structure movement in your new year? And what are your favourite workout programs that might not seem like much at first sight?