This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Blog: My Sweaty Sunday

If you've been itching to try a Sweaty Sundays dance class with master Ryan Heffington but were too chicken to go, now's your chance to test the sweaty waters; take the intro class this coming Sunday!

I was determined to go to The Sweat Spot last Sunday.  It was early enough.  I’d been meaning to go to this place for several years now.  The more press Ryan Heffington, the ringmaster of this hot spot, his troupe and Sunday goers get, however, the more hesitant I become.  I used to dance a lot.  I used to have more of a lithe yet strong physique.  Now I’ve ‘filled’ out (to be polite to myself) and I don’t go dancing as much if at all anymore.   Things jiggle now and I don’t have the right clothes to wear.  And the Sweaty Sunday class was on my bucket list until I saw their videos of flashy high powered dancers wall to wall in ‘whoots’ and moves with a fashion sense that I have made an effort not to embrace.  I gave away the spandex long ago (now sorry I did). 

So, ergo, I pretty much erased the Sweaty Sunday from my list until about a week ago when I saw that Ryan himself was going to give an ‘intro to Sweaty Sundays’ class for those who are hesitant, er, chicken, er, perhaps with two left feet.  He stressed that it’s about having a good time, not about becoming a professional prima donna.    Then I read a HuffPo blog post about him specifically, how he pretty much danced with delight from childhood onwards, for the sheer love of it, and that gave me the fuel to put this on my calendar.  Because, afterall, I really do love to dance.  And I admit, I dance mostly alone, to tunes I cannot reveal here, in my art studio or in my apartment.  It just makes me so happy.

In the car, however, I felt fear creeping up, as I waited at the light, car and me idling.  I went round and round on Sunset looking for a parking spot and the class was about to start.  It’s getting way too congested around here (see  for more on that subject).  Finally I thought, right, I’ll give this one more chance and well I found a spot…much to the chagrin of my scaredy cat paws clutching the wheel.  When I actually walked towards the ‘Spot’,  I heard music I thought was the thumping warm up inside but it actually turned out to be an arousing anthem for the  gathering masses at the  storefront church next door.

Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Inside the Spot, I found a place closer to the back of the dance studio floor.  Crowded but spacious enough (probably due to the fact that this was an ‘intro’ class), I found myself in a yoga derived warm up, with poses that morphed in and out of downward facing dog, forward standing bend and warriors.  The variations were punctuated by Ryan’s voice which is alternately sing songy and downright loud and stern.  But stern only goes so far from a man wearing fabulous jazzy colored biking shorts. 

My trepidation quickly caved.  I was hopping and sashaying and dancing like it was 1980 again.  I dressed in black to hide the flab.  That worked too against a mirrored reflection of myself.  I actually convinced myself for a moment I wasn’t yet middle-aged!  And my cheeks ached from smiling for an hour.  And yes, we did sweat.  But most likely, ‘sweaty’ (as Ryan refers to the standard Sweaty Sunday class at 12 pm) would produce more and in his pep talk to us, layered between sequences and demos, Ryan repeated, "This is just like what we do in Sweaty but we hold it longer there (or we do it like, hundreds more times)."  

Find out what's happening in Echo Park-Silver Lakewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

So if you’re curious but have all kinds of excuses why you can’t go to the regular class, you’ve got another opportunity this coming Sunday at 10:30 am for that ‘Intro to Sweaty Sunday’.  And no, I won’t see you there because I’m going to ‘graduate’ my freakiness into the regular class, my fears have been allayed.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Echo Park-Silver Lake