22/09/2026
What if Movement Didn’t Have to Feel Like Exercise?
I’ve been thinking about my relationship with movement and my experience going through perimenopause. There’s so much information about what women should be doing at this stage of life: exercise more, lift weights, get your steps in, protect your bones, build muscle, improve your cardiovascular fitness.
And yes, those things matter. I’ve actually become more interested in strength and fitness in my 50s than I ever was when I was younger. 😊
But I’ve also realised that there is another part of movement that we don’t talk about nearly enough: how does it feel to be in your body while you’re doing it?!
I don’t believe movement always need to be another task we impose upon ourselves. It doesn’t have to be punishment for what we ate, or something we force ourselves through because we’ve been told our ageing bodies need fixing. Sometimes movement can simply feel good.
That idea sits right at the heart of Groove for me. Groove is exercise. But that’s almost beside the point.
When we Groove, we move continuously for the better part of an hour: our hearts beat faster, we get warm, we sweat, we bend, reach, twist, squat, stretch and travel through space. We work on balance, mobility, coordination and stamina.
So yes, we’re exercising, but I don’t particularly want you thinking about that while you’re doing it. I don’t want you counting repetitions, wondering whether you’re doing enough or worrying about whether you’re doing it right. I want the music to come on and for something much simpler to happen: I want you to move.👣
Movement is medicine.
Not because every movement needs to be prescribed and not because our bodies are problems that need treating, but because human bodies are made to move. Somewhere along the way too many of us have become disconnected from the pleasure of doing that.
Dance can be especially intimidating. Lots of people tell me, “Oh, I can’t dance.” Usually what they mean is that they don’t know choreography. They don’t think they’re coordinated, or at some point they learned that dancing is something you can be good or bad at.
Groove erases that perception.
I give you just one or two simple movements for each song. That’s our common language. Then you get to make those movements yours: big or small, strong or soft, low or high, silly, sensual, joyful, restrained or dramatic - whatever feels right in your body that day.
There is no prize for being the best dancer in the room. In fact, there is no best dancer in the room.
That’s why creating a safe space matters so much to me.
When I say “safe”, I don’t just mean physically safe. I mean a space where you don’t feel watched or judged, where you don’t have to keep up, and where nobody cares whether your left foot went left when everyone else’s went right.
It’s a space where you can modify something because your knee hurts, you’re tired, you’re recovering, you’re having a hot flush or you simply don’t feel like doing it that way today. It’s a space where a woman who hasn’t danced since she was 20 can walk through the door and gradually remember that dancing still belongs to her.
That matters at any age. But I think it can matter enormously in midlife.
Perimenopause has made me think differently about what our bodies are asking from us.
There are days when our capacity is enormous and there are days when it isn’t. So many things can change during this stage of life: sleep, energy, recovery, stress and sometimes even our tolerance for noise - literal and metaphorical.
Perhaps the answer isn’t always to override those signals, perhaps sometimes it’s to listen to them.
That doesn’t mean becoming fragile and it doesn’t mean never challenging ourselves. I still believe in getting stronger. I still believe in challenging our muscles, hearts and bones, but challenge and kindness aren’t opposites.
We can build strength without being at war with our bodies and we can move simply because moving feels wonderful.
That is what I want Groove to be.
Yes, it’s a dance fitness class. Yes, you’ll exercise. Yes, you may leave sweaty and pleasantly tired, but those aren’t the things I most want you to take home with you.
I want you to experience an hour in which your body isn’t something you’re assessing, criticising, shrinking, improving or comparing. It’s simply the body you’re living in: the body that gets to hear music and respond, the body that gets to take up space, the body that gets to play and the body that gets to move differently from every other body in the room.
Maybe that’s one of the things midlife can teach us. After decades of being told what our bodies should look like and what we should make them do, perhaps we can start asking a different question:
What kind of movement makes me want to come back and move again?
For me, that’s where Groove lives: not exercise as punishment, not movement because we should, but movement as connection, expression and joy. Movement as medicine.
And a room where you are safe to discover what that movement looks like for you. 😌
Sunshine Coast Groove with Stellina
