11/30/2025
Focus of the week: Letting ourselves get a little weirder. ✨
Friend, I am sooooooo ridiculously excited for this week’s focus.
This week is all about getting a little weirder as we dance. I’ll explain. :)
You see, Aya is all about freeing our body (and self), and yet…. sometimes I find myself making my dance look…. well…. normal. I can feel that inhibition. I want to roll around on the floor more, but I don’t want to be quite so different than everyone else. I want to let my body move freely, but I don’t want it to look too weird and scare everyone away. :)
Do you ever feel that way? If so, don’t worry— it totally makes sense. Often in our culture, dance is considered a performative art. There’s typically an audience, and the dance is designed, choreographed, practiced, and performed with the audience in mind.
Aya, however, is totally different than that. There’s no audience in Aya. Instead, Aya is about dancing for the pure joy of doing so. The pure JOY of being alive in a body, being one with the music, and connecting with that flow state that we can experience as we dance and move freely. In Aya, it’s not at all about moving in ways that are aesthetically pleasing to someone watching us. So, if you grew up experiencing dance as something that you do for an audience, then Aya might feel like a really different way of dancing than what you might be used to.
Aya is a place where we can free ourselves from performing. A practice where we can free ourselves from filtering our dance as being something needs to look good, or look pleasing, or look pretty, or look like… well anything really. But letting go of performing, or letting go of our inhibitions in general isn’t always easy.
I don’t mean to suggest that performing & inhibitions themselves are bad. Not at all. Performing and watching performers can be amazing. And developing the ability to inhibit ourselves can be very helpful (and very natural skills to develop as we grow). As humans, we’re very social creatures. We tend to do what those around us are doing. We tend to not want to stand out, or be weird, or be different then whoever’s next to us. And, it makes sense survival-wise, right? For example, at times, if we blended in, we’d be less of a lone target and more likely to survive. Safety in numbers.
But here’s where it can get tricky in modern day. Inhibitions can start to feel like cages (and we might not even be conscious of it). When we think about where we are now in life…. Do we still need to maintain allllllllll of the inhibitions we’ve learned & practiced over the years? Maybe certain ones, sure… but…. do we need to keep a tight hold of all of the inhibitions we’ve learned over the years when we are here together dancing? In Aya class? At the Woman’s Club, or in your living room on Zoom?
In Aya you are safe to explore being less inhibited-- more free. You’re safe to move your body in ways that feel good today, and feel authentic, and feel freeing to you in the moment. We don’t need to look the same (even when we are doing choreographed movement together). We’re safe to be different. We’re safe to move in ways that are unlike the person next to us, or unlike what the instructor is doing. We’re safe to stand out. We’re safe to just move and dance and be.
So this week’s focus is just a reminder for us that it’s OK to be different. In fact, let’s lean right on into being weird, and embrace it.
Friend, I’ve been thinking about this focus since Halloween. Every Halloween class, I find that I let myself move in gnarly shapes and scary, spooky ways… and, well let’s just say, my Halloween dancing is not… pretty. And, each year, it’s like oh man this is all available too. I didn’t realize how much I was still inhibiting my body (and still at times trying to make my dancing aesthetically pleasing), until those inhibitions were completely non-existent in my Tigger suit. :)
And that sensation of freedom —-freedom from being aesthetically pleasing at all—- is the inspiration for this week’s focus. We’re going to walk right up to those inhibitions (whatever they may be) and face them. This week, we’re going to invite ourselves to get weirder (and I mean weird in the most wonderful kind of way). :)
This week is the perfect time to do whatever you have felt yourself hold back from doing as you dance. Move on the floor in weird ways. Let your voice make weird sounds. Shake in weird ways. Flow in weird ways. Etc…….
Ok…. so…. why let ourselves get weirder?
Soooooooo many reasons…. Here are a few!
1) Fitness (mobility, pliability, adaptability, etc.)
By letting ourselves move in a larger variety of ways (including weirder ones), we’ll further cultivate and nurture our body’s natural mobility, further free our joints, further nourish our fascia, and maintain greater overall pliability, strength, flexibility, etc. For example, by giving ourselves permission to roll around on the floor, we can maintain (or reclaim) our ability to get up and down from (and roll around on) the floor with ease.
2) Freedom of self-expression
By exploring and giving our body (& self) even more (& weirder) options, we can further free our unique, intuitive, authentic self-expression to shine forth. As we free our self-expression, we continue to break out of any boxes we’ve built around ourselves over the years. We’ll shake more freely. Flow more freely. Sing more freely. Hi-yah more freely. Flail more freely. Dessert more freely. Speak our truth more freely. Day by day. Song by song. Dance by dance. We’ll further melt away the inhibitions, making it easier to express our authentic self moment to moment. We’ll continue to dance ourselves free.
3) Self-discovery
By experimenting with moving in new (weird) ways, we can discover more about (and tap into, or reconnect with) different parts of ourselves that might be … well…. somewhat tucked away. We can experiment with being a little sexier. Being a little stronger. Being a little more philosophical. Being a little more powerful. Being a little more sensitive. Being a little more abstract. Being a little more woowoo. Etc., etc. Whatever ways we might find we are still holding ourselves back. Perhaps it’s a chance to connect with a part of you that you didn’t even know existed. Perhaps it’s a chance to reconnect with a part you that you haven’t seen for a while. Either way it’s another chance to dance ourselves home and discover more about who we are.
4) Body maintenance
Our culture is pretty uptight, body-wise. We sit. We stand. We walk. We treadmill. We bike. But shake??? Eek. Wiggle? Yikes. Roll on the floor? Oh my. Flail? Open our arms wide and take up space? Reach & twist randomly? What on earth is she doing? :) Yet ALL of these kinds of movements are natural. And doing them regularly can really help to maintain (or reclaim) your body’s natural ranges of motion, and encourage overall health, fitness, functioning, and longevity. Humans are meant to MOVE. In all planes. All ranges of motion. All directions. All ways. And you know that phrase “if you don’t use it, you lose it?” As we learn to override (and inhibit) our body over the years (being good, sitting still, looking cool, not standing out, being mature, acting our age, waiting patiently, being quiet, etc.), and we become more sedentary, we can begin to lose a lot of our natural mobility, agility, flexibility, functioning, and authentic expression. The body tightens and stiffens, aches, pains, and injuries can lead to further inhibition. The great news is that we can keep (or reclaim) a lot of our health and mobility simply by encouraging our body to move in all kinds of ways again. And with Aya it is soooooo easy to do, because we truly can move in all kinds of ways. We just have to be willing to be a little weird (compared to our culture’s social norms). So go ahead, let your kiddos or partner roll their eyes as you shake, flow, or flail your body free to some music each day. Someday they’ll get it. Or if they don’t, well… at least you’ll have fun and feel good! :) Which brings me to my next point….
5). It’s FUN! And it feels good!!!!
It’s soooooooo FUN to let GO and just dance and be free. It feels sooooooo goooooooood to MOVE our bodies!!! Wiggling and shaking and rolling around on the floor feel soooooooo goooooood! Plus, Aya is such a perfect playground for practicing this. The more we practice being weird (and free) in class, the more comfortable we’ll feel to be weird (and free) outside of class too. And that, my friend, is where this practice becomes so very empowering. The more we connect with what feels right (from within) as we dance, the more we do so outside of class too. Whether it’s making a decision that is different than the crowd, or living a lifestyle that’s different, strengthening our freedom and authenticity muscles in class helps them to be there and ready to support us in life too.
So let’s DO IT, babe!! Let’s give ourselves permission to be even weirder (and feel even more amazing)!
Whatcha think, friend? Ready to give it a go? Want to get weirder with me this week? :)
Is there anything that comes to mind right away that you want to try? Or something you’ve really been wanting to let your body explore more of?
Or… how about beyond the dance floor? Are there any ways you’d especially like to explore being a bit weirder (and more free, more you) at home? Or out in the big beautiful world this week? Are there any old inhibitions that are no longer needed?
As always, I can’t wait to see what we discover together. See you soon!
Much love,
💛 Dani
