Yes!! I came back about 30 lbs overweight after leaving dance fro 3 years to recover from back and knee injuries from competitive cheer and a car accident. It's sometimes frustrating to not be able to bend quite the way I used to, but it is nice to just DANCE without the pressure of being the best in the class vying for a spot in a show. I started dancing again at a studio in Hollywood where all the dancers are younger, in better shape, and super competitive. I had to seriously swallow my pride when I first started going back, but their drive pushed me to push myself as much as I could given my limitations and now, although probably the least technically advanced amongst my younger classmates, it's so much fun to be able to out dance them sometimes just by putting a smile on my face and truly enjoying the movement... good luck with your return... enjoy it!!

I remember when I stopped dancing, too, that I was so relieved not to go to class and be critisized while doing something I loved all the time. But now, I'll have a crappy day and go to class because I know I'll feel better... and even started dancing semi-professionally again, but with a troupe with little choregraphic intensity. I found that while I wasn't comfortable doing some things that I used to do well, my movement, in a way, was almost better because I had matured as a person and could bring true emotion to my dance... just rambling.

I know how you feel!! I stopped dancing after high school because I thought I had stopped liking it... it turned out a few years later that I was yearnig to put my tights and leotard back on and dance again! It turned out that the real reason I stopped was because of all the pressure and the fact that I had a female Hitler as a teacher back then... When I started to dance and the corrections were appropriate and instructive as opposed to condesending I saw how much I really love to dance and I've started doing shows again... talk about a happy ending!

Oh yeah, there's nothing like being in class with 20-somethings to make you sort of think "what am I DOING here?" But fortunately the instructor is extremely understanding and accommodating (we danced together before, and he is all too aware of what aging does to the body) and he actually discourages me from pushing myself too far. What surprised me was how fluid I still felt, and how much flexibility I had NOT lost. Thing is, the adult classes only meet twice a week, and during one of those, I'm teaching, so I get (at best) one class a week, and that's just not enough. Sigh.