What Dancing Badly Taught Me About Faith

I am not a dancer. This is not the blithe claim of a former cheerleader —no. I failed out of first-grade jazz class. If judges were to grade my dancing ability like the Olympics, they would need signs featuring negative numbers.

How then, did I end up in the Cincinnati Ballet’s practice room one Saturday morning at 11am, surrounded by people who can touch knee to nose while standing upright?

Good question.

I’ve been telecommuting and so sedentary that I make a paralyzed iguana look energetic.

“I pulled a muscle swiveling around to the copier,” I complained to my friend Chris. “My body is so tight…I need to dance!”

“You should try the Rhythm & Motion class at the Cincinnati Ballet,” Chris said with stars in her eyes. Her tone inferred new love, addiction or both.

(Never mind that every time I start dancing Santa kills an elf.)

“Where do I sign up?”

And so it was that I found myself hanging my coat over the barre at the Cincinnati Ballet, trying to find a spot that was A) Inconspicuous and B) Lacking a direct line of sight to the mirror.

I knew I was in over my head when people next to me were “pre-warming up” by doing full splits– I wouldn’t be that warm if my legs were on fire.

Fortunately, I relish being in over my head. It reminds me of jumping off the high dive as a kid and feeling the exhilaration of plunging down, down, down.

This is especially helpful when my performance is bound to bad, bad, bad.

Our fearless teacher, a dynamic blonde with a pixie cut, started class by demonstrating a new routine. She had coordination and legs I would kill for and moved with highly contagious energy. Come to think of it, she might be Patient Zero, originator of the Fever. I fell a little in love with her.

”One, two, three, four!” she shimmied, cha-cha’d, charlestoned, and twirled. “Now your turn,” she smiled in the mirror at us. “…Five, six, seven, eight!”

The veterans shimmied, cha-cha’d, charlestoned and twirled in time with her count. I watched, stood, stepped, and tripped on the offbeat.

When the music started, I turned the opposite way and danced the wrong direction. I raised my arms instead of my legs. I even flapped when I should have flipped.

The energy in the room was palpable—a mix of excitement and terror reminiscent of riding a bike downhill with no hands. It didn’t matter that I was dancing badly; I was dancing. Moving to the music, grooving it with all I got.

During each song there was a free dance period, where we all did whatever felt right—no choreography, just heart. We smiled at each other; we laughed at ourselves; we performed running leaps. And when it was all over, we applauded, whooped, hollered and struck a unique, freestyle pose.

I walked out of that class breathless and happy, not caring one smidge how “badly” I’d been dancing, because I’d been DANCING, damn it.

And it occurred to me that this was exactly how faith should feel: free, fearless, fun.

Because faith is a dance, not a prisoner’s march.