Dancetastic - an early Christmas present!

I'm somewhere in the region of cloud 9 this evening. Dancing has that effect on me. Normally this joy is portioned out a little each evening I'm in training, but having not done an proper dancing since August it hit me all in one go.

I had a one-hour dance lesson this evening at 6pm with Graham Oswick in Cheam. Sharon and I had agreed that I'd come along, probably just to watch, but if I felt up to it then I'd join in for a bit perhaps as well. In anticipation of this I planned my meal-times carefully, and had a couple of hours of sleep in the afternoon to ensure I'd be fresh. This also made up for lack of sleep last night. I left the house ridiculously early, even taking into account South London rush-hour gridlock and arrived with half an hour in hand. The studio was filled with small children having a group dance class, and parents nervously clucking over them from the sides.

I watched for a while, but mostly sat about nervously. I'd built the whole thing up a bit excessively in my head. It really felt like a test of how far my recovery had come, and a strong indication of whether dancing would ever be a serious option again in the near future. Sharon made it through the traffic from darkest Guildford with 15 minutes to spare, so we swapped Christmas presents and twiddled our thumbs. Finally the lesson got underway. I was feeling relatively energetic so I started on my feet.

Graham seemed quite impressed right from the start. Having not danced together for 4 months I don't think anyone was expecting much, but not only were we dancing as well as last August, it seemed pretty clear we were dancing significantly better. As always Graham noted some fundamental mechanical issues to look at, and we worked in some detail on some bits of simple choreography. It got pretty involved, with much banter from both sides, but it was clear we were making some pretty big improvements. I glanced up at the clock, expecting to be about 15 minutes into the lesson, but it turned out we'd been dancing fairly continuously for 45 minutes, and I really wasn't tired.

We went on and finished the lesson feeling inspired. I was absolutely thrilled, and we confirmed some more lesson-bookings in January. The feeling of release to have finally let the dancing out properly was amazing - what a drug. Grasping the bull by the horns I suggested to Sharon that we have a quiet rest for an hour then head over to Semley studio in Norbury for some practice. She really didn't take much persuading, and after a hour's sit and natter in a nearby pub we headed over to my very favourite dance-location.

It was fairly empty, but the music and the atmosphere were characteristically inspiring. We thought we'd try a little bit of our old dance routines. It felt *amazing*! Difficult to describe what was different, but the whole thing felt ten times more 'grounded' and controlled. Didn't hurt at all that all the bits we could see in the mirror looked pretty-damned fine as well. By now I was plastered with a perma-grin. Admittedly I did feel quite tired even after once-through the routine. But then again Sharon was pretty much as tired as I was - so not really an illness problem but a stamina one.

Anyway, we alternated rest/dance through the Rumbas and Cha-Chas and even managed a sneaky little Samba before deciding to call it a day and get some food. We headed off for a celebratory Chinese meal nearby to top of a wonderful evening. We were both amused, but quite pleased to feel the muscle-aches setting in even after sitting down for an hour. There's something quite masochistic about enjoying post-training pain, but you know its doing you good in the long run. Pain aside, I practically floated back to the car and back home.

Did I mention I was thrilled, delighted, excited? If I can just get this itch and sleep problem sorted the surely I must be able to get back to work eventually as well?