Dance has always been a powerful tool in my life.  I dance when I need to recharge and recalibrate when times get tough, or just to get out of my head and into my body – where I feel so much better and more vibrant and alive. I dance when I need to feel and express emotion, relieve stress or simply create fun and happy.

And I know I can’t be alone!  

Modern life can be overwhelming.  Each day, we are inundated by technology, distraction, and negativity.  It is easy to get caught up in the morass and to lose connection with ourselves.  Of course, life often has more in store for us than just innocuous daily challenges.  At one point or another, we are all confronted by trauma of varying degrees...verbal, sexual or physical abuse, a career crisis, illness, accidents, death of a loved one, relationship problems, financial trouble.  Needless to say, life can be hard.

When life feels off track, I say it’s time to put on music a start dancing.  Dancing will help you move through the tough emotions, tap into your inner joy, your playfulness, your aliveness, even your sensuality, and sassiness — all of which are an integral part of healing and living fully.

Dance has real benefits:

1. Improved flexibility

Repeated practice will increase the flexibility of the body, so you know how far your body is able to be moved, and you decrease your risk of injury.

2. Stronger muscles

Dancing often calls on muscles that are rarely used in everyday activities – especially in modern sedentary living. Dancing can strengthen the abdominal muscles, buttocks, and thighs and just about all body muscles from regular practice.

3. Weight management

Regular dancing is a wonderfully effective way to stay fit and maintain a healthy weight. It also helps you lose excess weight. High-intensity repetitive motion and mastering the technique requires a lot of calories.

4. Body Shaping

Shake with graceful body movements during the dance, will be put on the joints and ligaments of the lower spine back into position. Mastering the technique improves posture.

5. Increased stamina & confidence = Better Sex!

Dancing is a workout and can improve stamina, as well as toning your muscles naturally. Not only that, you will feel more confident, alive and fabulous in other parts of your life.  Dancing helps you feel better and sexier outside of the dance class.

6. Improved Blood Circulation

Improve Blood Circulation system that is very important in maintaining the balance of the body's biological system as a whole.

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A Closer Look: The Femme! Experience

Femme! is a passionate fusion of dance, sensual motion, meditation and celebration of the human form, designed by Dance, Health & Fitness Expert, Bernadette Pleasant.  

Femme! is about the freedom to love your curves, move your body and express yourself freely… your way! From your head to your heart, to your hips, it’s an empowered, fun, fit and sexy way to warm it up, work it out, make it move, express and release emotions, and cool it down with ease and sensuality. “It’s your body; you can do whatever you want with it – including love it, unapologetically.”

Using a variety of movement and musical styles including live drummers, Femme! interweaves the influences of Dance, Healing and Sensual Arts into a multi-sensory healing experience that expresses the entire body.

Set to African drumming, Femme! is not a work out class and no prior dance experience is necessary!   This is an opportunity to find an outlet for deep emotional healing. The hypnotic pulse of drumming moves dancers and drummers into a joyful celebration of life and provides a space for self-expression of the full range of emotion and incredible release. The focus is on "heart and soul drumming" as an avenue for individual spiritual deepening, healing and collective community building. It is a timeless tradition common to so many different cultures. An opportunity to unite a community as each individual enjoys a stronger connection with spirit.  

I’ve been to Multiple trauma, healing, growth and transformation workshops and trainings, - 10,40, 100, 500, 2300 people in a room telling their stories, feeling, digesting, expressing, moving through the full range of human emotions with music, sound and dance– from grief & rage to joy, sensuality, wild primal, play and celebration.  We lose connection with our wisdom and power because we lose connection with our bodies.  The trapped energy of inner stress, emotional pain, grief, anger, feeling stuck, past traumas ALWAYS show up in our bodies….no matter how disconnected and distracted we are, despite our efforts to deny and escape and bury in busyness…without even realizing. The body never lies. When you open up a dialogue with your body, you recover an essential part of yourself.

The Femme! Experience creates a sacred, safe space for every participant to feel and live fully as human beings; to move in sensual ways, to explore and release emotions, to change beliefs about themselves and to unapologetically love their bodies.  It invites everyone to reclaim their power and to boldly display that power as they move freely and fabulously throughout the world and to radiate our unique magnificence through our body, in every aspect of our lives.  Learning the Femme! Experience is to learn how to use movement to heal and transform yourself.

Let me know if this article helps.  I’d love to hear from you!