Newsletter Letter
Can't start a fire without a spark
Prescript: I write this newsletter as a teacher and a practioner of aerobics, who has found a lot of healing through aerobics and who thinks a lot about how aerobics practice can be a site for personal and collective healing. Please take what u like and fuck the rest. This newsletter is a practice too, as well as a celebration of navel-gazing— may we all pay deep attention to our bodies and share our findings with one another!! Thank u for being here <3
Dear Ponies,
It’s great to connect with you here during the weird liminal time that takes place over these last few days of the Gregorian calendar. If you want to get straight to business, scroll down to the Housekeeping section for 2025 schedule and pricing announcements <3
I love the total pile-up of holidays around the Solstice. Lisaida and I have been at Christmas fêtes, a December Capricorn Bday Party, Solstice gatherings, a Midnight Mass, a Boxing Day celebration, and will attend 2 Hanukkah parties over the weekend. We are going to Joshua Tree to observe New Years Eve, and then will celebrate 3 Kings Day on January 6th with Puerto Rican food and queer merriment. This is more socializing than I’ve done ALL of 2024, and I’m a little tired tbh, but also excited because it seems like everyone agrees that togetherness is key! No matter how big or small our communities are, we will need to lean into them more than ever next year, so why not start now!
Pony Sweat is a huge part of my community. But/And also, it makes me cringe when businesses talk about themselves as “communities.” Like, no, I don’t consider the bank my community. Or the brand of sneaker I wear. Thanks but no thanks! Over the years I’ve gone back and forth on whether to call Pony Sweat a community, because while Pony Sweat very much started out as a thing I did with friends and neighbors— I made it my business, and I don’t ever want the word “community” to be contorted into a selling-point. But, that has never changed what I know to be true, which is that Pony Sweat IS a community! I witness it all the time! Ponies come and share their energies and their moves and their knowledge and their musical-tastes with each other, in-person and across Time + Space! People recognize each other from their zoom boxes and run into each other out in the world! Nieves in Nashville saw Andrea (from L.A.) walking down the street on a visit to TN, and ran up to introduce herself bc “Andrea looked like a Pony!!”
We recognize something in each other that is shared, and that is reflected in the Core Values that inform our practice. The powerful connection that comes from group-dancing is undeniable and absolutely community building. I rely so much on this practice to feel connected to other humxns, and this practice helps me feel more connected to myself—- which avails me to even more humxn connection! It is infinite. * ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ * I am so grateful to you Ponies I see regularly (or semi-regularly or even irregularly, it’s always a treat!) I hope to see more of you next year <3
Most of these holidays ritualize finding/seeking/making Light in times of Darkness. I’ve been taking this time to tend to the cynicism that has grown in my heart since our beloved pup transitioned to the next plane, and to cultivate hope and a renewed sense of wonderment. Things that have been helping with this: singing, being silly, hugging my friends’ dogs, making my Christmas village which includes 3 altars to Pepita, and beholding my village every day. <3 I made this little scene for you of the Pony Team outside my village dance studio (gifted to me by Pony Veronica! Zoom in to look inside!) Season’s Greetings! Fuck the Moves Ponies!
housekeeping announcements!!
In keeping up with the housekeeping of the House of Pony Sweat, we are making several small changes to our offerings and pricing structure.
Across Time + Space
(the subscription formally known as O.O.O.B.N.A.)
Our video subscription is now called Across Time + Space! It is $15-30/month sliding scale, AND we are currently offering a 25% off sale for a one-year subscription ($222 is now $166.50). Use the code 25OFFYEAR for 12 months of livestream classes, videos, newsletters and special transmissions.
Drop-in + Class Packages!
Yes! We are bringing back packages for in-person class! AND you can pay for them in installments if that is helpful!
Drop-in for in-person class Wed, Thurs, and Saturdays is $20. We now have a WEEKLY Monday night Community Class for $10.
Pony Pass!
With the robust weekly in-person class schedule, you might love to get a Pony Pass! Get unlimited in-person classes AND access to Across Time + Space for $100/month. Renews monthly, and you can cancel whenever.
The Pony Pass membership and our Across Time + Space subscription help to sustain Pony Sweat. Thank you Ponies for your participation in these offerings! <3
Dancing in the Dark
I’m writing a Pony Sweat book and shared my writing for the first time publicly a couple weeks ago at a group reading organized by Jibz Cameron, who is also writing a book! I felt so afraid to do it, and it felt SO great to do something that I was SO afraid to do, in an environment that I knew was pretty safe. Highly recommend setting up some controlled risk-taking for yourselves. Anyway, here’s an excerpt from my first-draft manuscript, about ponying to Dancing in the Dark! Feels relevant to the themes of this newsletter….
According to wiki lore, Bruce Springsteen wrote Dancing in the Dark in a single night in his hotel room. Like so many of the very best songs, it was inspired by his frustration with the music industry. He had already written 70 whole songs for the new album, but they told him they still required a single. Supposedly, he told his producer something along the lines of, “You want a single YOU write it then” and then stormed back to his hotel, and commenced to write Dancing in the Dark. HA! As I’m writing this I’m like, oh my gosh Bruce must be an Aries. I’m married to a double Aries, and this scenario of giving the finger to some dumb feedback, but then throwing oneself into the task of creating something utterly perfect in response to that feedback, feels very familiar. But he’s not an Aries actually– Opposite!! Libra.
Bruce Springsteen is beloved for writing songs for the working class, and Dancing in the Dark is an anthem for all the passionate but downtrodden humxns who are sick of our circumstances and are powerless to change them. While the song is quite serviceable and catchy in its melody and rhythm, Bruce’s voice and words are what drive this song straight through the heart.
I wasn’t at all caught up in any Bruce Springsteen fandom until dancing to this song finally in 2016 at Pony Sweat. Earlier in my life, I had neutral feelings about him. I wasn’t particularly drawn to his songs, or to his persona. My aesthetic preferences have always leaned towards flashy maximalism. And as a youth, I was most captivated by either androgynous or high-femme expressions of gender (e.g. Jenny Shimizu, or Miss Piggy). I understood Bruce’s salt-of-the-earth, working-man’s appeal to the people around me, and I knew he represented something related to me— but it was something I didn’t care to have reverence for, and rather more of what I wanted to get away from. Funny enough, the lyrics in the second verse, describe the very predicament I was experiencing,
“I check my look in the mirror
Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man, I ain't gettin' nowhere
I'm just livin' in a dump like this
There's somethin' happenin' somewhere
Baby, I just know that there is.”
Bruce carries himself like “I know how to fix things.” He makes me believe that he knows lots and lots of things, like he probably came out of the womb knowing the names of different wrenches and which kind you need to fix each part of your car. He only needs one outfit– this one pair of jeans, this leather jacket and a small selection of worn bandannas. Ohhh, the privilege of simplicity!!! The freedom to strut about the earth unadorned! Bruce had an ass that looked so great in jeans, they put it on the freaking cover of the album in front of an american flag!! Let us just take a moment here, and imagine being Bruce, and feel into the experience of knowing that you have a really cute butt. You feel proud, but also humble. You have a right-sized recognition that the universe chose you to have this ass, and you know that your ass is a gift meant be shared with others. You allow people to behold your butt freely, without any anxiety or terror of the potential outcomes from drawing attention to this glorious physical feature. Now, from wherever you are, shake your butt a little bit, and allow a small knowing smile to emerge across your lips. I mean it! Try it!
When we pony to “Dancing in the Dark” we get to embody what it might feel like to be Bruce for a few minutes. We pretend and ACT AS IF we have the faith to carry on, amidst the drudgery of the day and the despair that creeps in every single night. We get to try on the privilege of his swagger and feel like no matter how bad it gets, we will be ok because we have the tools we need.
We might not often feel powerful in our bodies, and we may experience long bouts of feeling dejected and disconnected from the possibility of things ever getting any better. Dancing in the Dark, quite simply, offers that the remedy to our discontent is Dancing. The song speaks to our bodies’ deep-known wisdom. When lost– dance. When hopeless– dance. When we are desperate to connect with god–dance.
Take good care Ponies! Sending you and your vessels so much Love.
<3, Emilia