Sexy Siren Aerobics

If you think me laughing is incredibly sexy, then you would love this class.

For an hour tonight, I took part in a Sexy Sirens Aerobics class at a dance studio a couple of blocks from my house, a class I was invited to by one of my students.  There were about a dozen women in the room, plus the teacher.

I haven't been to a dance class since I was an undergraduate (back then I took modern, jazz, ballet, and a couple of semesters of West African dance).  Since then it's mostly been yoga.  And in yoga classrooms, you don't usually have mirrors.  In dance classes, though, the front wall is covered with mirrors so that you can see everything you're doing.

That, of course, is what inspired me to laugh so much.

The dancing was fast--arms here, here, here, throw your head back, swivel your hips, pound the floor, pound pound!--with moments of slowness, most of which involved caressing various parts of your torso or biting your finger.  The teacher in the front of the class actually looked like a professional performer.  She'd toss her body around effortlessly.  Then it was our turn, and I was sort of astonished:  my body won't do that!  Wait, what?  What?  Trying to copy the teacher, I would look at her body, then mine, and realize I wasn't doing what she was doing at all.

And then I would giggle, inspiring my student to encourage and reassure me.  "You look great!" she'd say.  I had to tell her several times that the laughter wasn't a sign of distress.  It was a sign that I was having a good time.

I've often mentioned the benefits of being in my 40s, and one of the benefits is that throwing myself around in a room full of other women who are trying to capture a sexy spirit is a lot of fun, even if I don't know what I'm doing.  I feel very little shame these days.  In this class I was able to capture the what the hell spirit that I think defines much of my life right now.

And I'll offer just the tiniest bit of analysis here:  the room was full of women of different shapes and sizes, and I appreciated that.  I wasn't the oldest woman in the room--another good thing.  And on the whole the teacher framed the class as one that was allowing the women in the room to feel sexy rather than looking sexy.  I'm not sure I fully believe that, but I appreciated the effort.  There was only one heteronormative comment (when she noted that if you slowly drag your hand up your body and put your finger in your mouth, a guy will keep watching).  Better than I expected.

I wore the ultimate sexy outfit:  leggings and a tshirt from Early Bird Diner.  As Amber observed as I was leaving for the class, "Nothing says 'sexy' like fried chicken."  So true.