This post is written by Pam Harris, a senior AI research manager and mother runner of two from outside Atlanta. “BAMR Pamr” has written numerous blog posts for our site, including one about her metamorphosis from runner to boxer to hip hop dancer.

The invitation reads “We will be dancing to Sports Car by Tate McRae! The attire theme is jerseys if you would like to join!!! It is going to be sexy, fun jazz hip-hop combo!”

I show up to the local elementary school’s PE pavilion ready to expand my repertoire: hair spiked, sporting a graffitied Atlanta United jersey. A crew of my beloved hip-hop sisters surround me, also in jerseys, long hair worn down.

Last year as a novice dancer, I watched these women, mimicking their movements as best I could. In my second season, simply learning the steps is no longer enough, and I watch more closely, trying on their styles. Dance is a form of artistic storytelling, and each dancer must make the story her own.

In the pavilion, I struggle with both the unfamiliar movements and the feminine, sensuous style. All around me, dancers flip their long tresses and roll their bodies suggestively. My 2” hair does not flip, and my movements suggest only discomfort. I’m closer on the gender scale to female than anything else, but I do not present or feel feminine, and this dance’s story feels alien in my body.

As a runner, I did not truly find my groove until I discovered the marathon, a distance that catered to my natural strengths of patience and running my own race—when you don’t particularly care to follow the crowd, it’s pretty easy to literally not follow the overeager crowd.

When my short, stocky, middle-aged self walks into a boxing ring, opponents—typically men— tend to write me off. But I’m a fighter by nature, and while they’re busy preening or patronizing, I sneak in with a smart and brutal takedown from the inside they never see coming.

I suddenly realize I’ve been trying to tell someone else’s story, but I don’t know how to reconcile who I am with the choreography. I leave the dance class in tears, feeling separate from these women who have become a part of myself. But because I don’t back down from a fight, I text my confession with a plea for help.

“This dancer has always struck me as able to walk that line of doing some very feminine moves in a way that isn’t terribly feminine,” comes a response with a video attached. “She immediately follows a  super-sexy move that feels more feminine with a more masculine swagger and kind of FU tone.”

She had me at “FU.” 

The following Wednesday, I approach our choreography with a new kind of swagger. “Hello, it’s me,” sings Cardi B. I put on a fight face, give society’s feminine ideal the middle finger, and find my own path into the sexy moves. Hello, it’s me.