Comic Relief danceathon 2015, Red Nose Day 2015
Clockwise from top left: Me raring to go!, Me and my fabulous dancing partners Jen, Rosie and Hannah, In all our get-up with Red Noses for wings, Me after 6 hours of dancing!, Me with Hannah and Rosie about two hours in, Hannah busting some moves, The wonderful Team Honk founder members: (L-R) Penny Alexander from A Residence & Parent Shaped, Annie Spratt from Mammasaurus and Tanya Barrow from MummyBarrow (thanks to Penny for the centre picture)

I did it!! *dances around joyously* I danced for six whole hours with Team Honk for the first ever Comic Relief danceathon!

I can’t deny it didn’t hurt. It was more than a little bit ouch at times but it was completely awesome! Thanks to wonderful fellow bloggers and marvellous friends Team Honk has raised over £30,000. I told you! Completely awesome! It makes it worth every cramp, ache, pain and three nights of sleep deprivation!

This was our dancing itinery. Two hours in, I didn’t think I was going to finish!

12pm – 70’s disco
12.30pm – Swag
1pm – 80’s Anthems
1.30pm – Musical Theatre
2pm – 90’s Rave
2.30pm – Michael Jackson Moves
3pm – Funk
3.30pm – Diva Dancing
4pm – Bashment
4.30pm – Pop
5pm – Ballroom & Latin Taught by Dancers on Strictly
5.30pm – Sixties Soul

Whoever decided to put 70’s disco as the opening section was a genius! It was the best opener! We had a blast and the instructor got us whooping and hollering and shaking our hips. Swag belongs to the hip-hop movement and saw us doing a whole host of poses. Much fun! Honestly, and rather disappointingly, I kind of lost of my way with the 80’s anthems. My rhythm had left the room but I held it together and remembered the mantra ‘dance like no one is watching’! It all came back together for musical theatre. Brilliant dancing and singing from 2000 people all pretending to be West End stars!

I always wanted to dance like Michael Jackson…

Comic Relief Danceathon 2015, Comic Relief 2015, Team Honk
Thriller Night!

My absolute favourite was the Michael Jackson section. Oh my god, it was bloody brilliant! How the choreographer managed to teach 2000 people the moves to the thriller dance in 30 minutes is beyond me. That man deserves a medal! Thanks to Aly Hodge, another wonderful Team Honk member and brilliant blogger at Bug, Bird & Bee  who marvellously managed the Team Honk social media accounts for the 6 hours and filmed us all being zombies to raise money for Comic Relief.

Here we are doing Thriller!

There’s nothing quite like dancing to make you feel happy. It’s good for the soul. And when you’re dancing to raise money for an amazing cause, well, the atmosphere was electric!

After 6 hours of solid dancing – other than a quick dash or three to the toilet – we were all beaming! Our joints were aching, my knees were done in from the bashment section (Jamaican dancehall if you’ve not heard of it before….lots of bumping and grinding and getting down low!). I’d big fished-little fished and hugged it out in the rave section, danced like a real diva to songs like Beyonce’s ‘All the Single Ladies’ and swept the floor viennese waltz style with the Strictly Stars! We covered a half marathon in dance steps! It was all pretty magical and a day I’ll certainly never forget.

I love Claudia Winkleman – her sense of humour appeals to me, so I have to thank Claudia for hosting and all the celebs who danced on stage and helped us get through it all. Rufus Hound was a legend and stuck with us for the whole six hours!!

A special thank you to the wonderful ladies from Team Honk for inviting me to join you for Comic Relief again this year. And a big thank you to my lovely friends friend from home who joined me for the dancing marathon…you made it even more special. And those items of jewellery you made with jelly sweets….well, who couldn’t love the jelly sweet jewellery!

And of course a huge, massive thank you to everyone who sponsored me. I hoped to raise £150 but you fabulous people donated £290 for me to dance for six hours for Comic Relief. It made a huge difference to me on the day and it will make the world of difference to the lives of so many people here in the UK and in Africa. Thank you! Thank you!

It’s four days on now, the aches have disappeared, the cramps have gone away and I’m ready to do it all again! Same time next year folks??

6 Comments on Ouch! But oh so awesome! The Comic Relief Danceathon 2015

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