Repertoire: Twerk!

I’ve placed my gym membership on hold because nowadays I’ve been focusing on Ballet Beautiful and their subscription to stream videos.  I also do calisthenics and play with my dumbbells and barbells at home just like the meathead that lives within me and will most likely never die.  However, with placing my gym membership on suspension the dilemma begins: I’m not dropping weight or bodyfat quick enough because my body was used to weightlifting and doing cardio 5-6 times a week.  There’s no way Ballet Beautiful (that is the bulk of my fitness at the moment) is going to make losing weight miracles happen overnight.

I’m still hindered by my ankle and could only do so much at home.  After a year and a half I’m finally able to perform mountain climbers and my body has a limit to how many I’m allowed to perform.  I just started to work the nerve physically and mentally to jump rope again.  And it’s very painful – the impact – especially on ligaments/hardware, but it’s necessary to get me to the place I must.  Spring hasn’t rolled on in yet for me to take advantage of bike riding (which will be another mental barrier I would have to break) or to even enjoy long walks again by the water.

So I needed something that would get me more cardio in my life and will scorch calories especially since 3 months ago my doctor told me I have now graduated to diabetes.  Yay!  (Yes, I’m on medication.)  But, this news isn’t going to deter me because adversity is my friend, teacher and motivator.  Unfortunately, Ballet Beautiful doesn’t provide a lot of cardio because I can’t perform glorious jumps like in Allegro and Jetes.  But once upon a time I remember loving to dance my heart away.  And now I decided to enter this popular dance in my repertoire:  Twerk.

Growing up I loved dancing!  I danced anything and everything especially if I knew how, and if I didn’t know how I would practice, practice, practice.  My favorite things to do were anything that moved my hips to a pleasant rhythm like Dancehall Reggae, Merengue and Bellydancing.  As a teenager I was very physical.  Dancing was probably one of the things that kept my body in shape because I would put in hours making moves look effortless.  My goal was to move like a snake and I succeeded.

I have a pretty good foundation already to take on this Rump-shaking business.  Two days have already equaled to 2 hours of practice and I must say I like it because it challenges me with a whole new skill set and focus.  I like the fact I can be stationary, but get a lot of movement out of it, so I don’t have to worry about jumping and hurting my ankle because the pain is constant; it never goes away.  But I’ll continue working through the hurt as well as listen to my body when it needs a timeout because the one thing I don’t want to ever do is give up.

The one interesting challenge for me is isolating one body part in an (almost) unnatural way.  Isolating a body part (excluding bodybuilding) has always been tricky for me even when I try to shimmy for Bellydancing (there are many shimmies by the way).  I’m used to working my body as a whole, so when I open a window the power of all my muscles work together, not just my arms or legs for bracing.  So when I’m performing one of the movements which consist of shaking/hip-thrusting (or what I call popping) only the glutes, the rest of my body wants to follow suit and get in on the action.  However, it’s called twerking for a reason and that reason is to largely perform dance moves with the glutes in a curious isolation method.  And like usual, I’m up to mastering this challenge.

There are countless dance movements to learn from to standing, to performing on the wall, to getting down on the floor and to even dancing with/on a partner.  For the most part I’m enjoying my heart pounding.  I enjoy the energy I have to bring.  I enjoy the low squat stance.  I enjoy putting a lot of weight through my ankles.  I enjoy all the isometric (tricep, erector spinae, quad, hamstrings, glutes, and inner thigh) contractions.  I enjoy the time under tension too.  It’s especially fun because I’m dancing, so it feels like play.  I like zoning out and not worrying about sets or reps.  I like the feeling of liberated motion.

Here’s a quicker Twerk.  I have a feeling I’m going to be a mix between a slow twerking lady to a powerhouse one. 😉

Are you adding a new kind of fitness to your routine?

-Ms. Hall