Hot Hot Hot Hot Stuff. . . Hot Hot Hot Hot

Donna Summer with her famous disco tune and her appropriate last name pretty much sums it up right now.

Welcome to Las Vegas in the summertime. Today's high will reach 111 (I have a feeling it will be hotter since it is just 110 now) with the temps rising steadily throughout the week peaking at 116 on Thursday.

Every July and August I ask myself the same things, why do I continue to put up with this heat? I guess because the weather is pretty much perfect if not fairly cold in the winter so much so that we forget how hot it can get. This too shall pass.

You want hot? Check this out! Hey at least I am trying to avoid the hottest times to run.

So 4:00 am wakeup calls to run are pretty much the norm, that is if I want to run half-way awake with my body functioning and all that jazz.

Yesterday I ran my new 9.5 mile loop from my house, down to the evil community center and around through a neighborhood, past a park and down a parallel street home. Can you believe it still felt hot at 5 am? I started off on dirt, but as soon as I hit the pavement the residual heat left over from the day before raised the ambient temps by about 10 degrees.

Why continue to run during the hottest time? Well there is always an excuse why I can't run and if listened to that voice each time I wouldn't be running. It sure feels good to be done and to say I have done it. And no doubt it will make running through 50 degree temps feel like a breeze. Try running with an anvil strapped to your back for two months and you too will come out stronger, LOL!

And by the time I made it to my WW meetings I felt accomplished and ready to give to others.
After was the requisite reward of a regular (3 points) Golden Spoon yogurt as my reward for making it through my morning followed by a not so accidental dunk in my inlaw's pool in my clothes and a bellydance class.

I was glad I went as it would have been so easy not to go. We focused more on folk-style with a lot of hoppy steps. She had us wear skirts. Darn it! I wore one last week and all we did was roll around on the floor like Madonna so I refused to wear a skirt again to BD class. We only did a little rolling around today. We also played with the veil and she reviewed some moves she showed us a while back I was ready to be reminded on.

So I have a few things to work on this week including my camels. Gotta work on being more "snakelike" and flexible. That comes with time I am sure. Hey I started out totally stiff with two left hips and now my hips are in the game which is good progress. Again I am not only learning how to bellydance, but how to learn to dance in general. This process requires patience.

So lately I have been struggling with an issue about one of my instructor's occassional comments putting down other instructors (which I take from). I did speak with another instructor about the situation because I didn't want her to feel as if I was "cheating" on her by learning from someone else. She said I should continue to learn as much as I can from everyone. But as soon as it gets too uncomfortable, it is time to go.

Back to Sunday's class... I go with all the positive self-talk about how much I am learning and how fun it is to bellydance when I get a snide comment during a correction to one of my steps. Ok, what I was doing wasn't wrong per se, but maybe not the best choice of move for the music. But we were playing with the veil and I thought a camel would look nice. Like anyone was following the music anyway? But ok, I can take a correction. I want to learn. I did feel like a kid sneaking a cookie from the candy jar (No slow moves, this is fast music!). Then she says something like your other teacher may have taught you that, but that is wrong. Um, no one taught me that. I was just freestyling with the veil. But to dig on my other instructors was mean. Last week and some other time she called the style my other instructor teaches us is akin to "stripping." That is so wrong.

That makes me laugh, though, since this teacher dances the same style! Cabaret!

Anyway, I will stop rambling. The point is if I am starting to feel like I can't express myself in this class for fear of being judged or if I keep hearing negative comments, I may have to change. I joined that gym because that class is offered at the right time on the right day. Too bad.