Misty Tripoli recounts her lifelong relationship with dance, her rise as a fitness and dance professional, and a private struggle with severe bulimia. Through meditation and choosing to "dance for herself," she experienced a transformative awakening that led her to create the Groove method — a nonjudgmental, group dance practice focused on authenticity, self-expression, and healing. The Groove method has spread internationally and Misty invites others to train as facilitators.
Chapters
So a little bit about me and a little bit about why groove and how it came about. So I have danced my whole life since before I could walk. And I'll guarantee you did too. Most of us do. Well, actually all of us do until we get to a point where we start to feel a little insecure and embarrassed about dancing because we don't feel good at it. But I didn't go through that. I've always loved to dance and I was always pretty good at it. So I was one of those that was fortunate. I was coordinated and I could follow stuff and I loved it. But I never had any formal training. I just always danced and I could watch and pick up. So at the age of 16, I started teaching step aerobics and was naturally really good at it. And that exploded into all forms of dance and fitness, from Pilates, yoga, spinning, boxing, aqua. I was actually kind of a hardcore hip hop dancer for a long time and I choreographed lots of shows and tours and did a lot in my industry. And it all culminated to about 10 years ago. I was at the top of my game in Los Angeles. I was the shiznit, or at least I thought I was. I was a Nike elite sponsored athlete, traveling the world, teaching. I've been on stages all around the world and I was one of the top fitness professionals in demand at all of the facilities for teaching and personal training and all of these other things, doing choreography. And I also had a dirty little secret. And that secret was, is that I was severely bulimic and nearly killed myself. So on the outside it looked like I had it all figured out. It looked like I was fit and healthy and yet I was dying inside. I was throwing up three to four times a day, teaching 20 classes a week, working my full time job, 50, 60 hours a week just to stay on top of my game and was absolutely miserable. And then I had a very profound and powerful awakening and I started to ask myself some really, really big questions. These questions were stuff like, what am I doing? Who am I doing it for? Who am I trying to impress? Is this as good as it gets? And the big question was, am I always going to hate my body? Am I always going to be at war with my meat suit? Am I never going to be okay when I look in the mirror? And I really didn't know that there was another way that was possible. But I knew that in some way, innately, I wasn't born to hate myself or hate my body or be at war with myself. So I started to cultivate some interesting practices in my life. I started to meditate, didn't know what I was doing, but I would sit down and just pay attention to what my mind was doing. And the second thing I started to do was allow myself to dance for me. And it was the first time I had done this in my whole life. I'd always danced to impress and dance to get it right and dance to be cool. And it was the first time I actually just danced for me, danced to feel good. And it blew my mind because it connected me with a part of myself I didn't know existed. And I didn't even know what it was. And what it was was my authentic self. My creative, expressed, authentic self with no reservation, no holding back, just letting myself be who I am. And I could only do that through dance. And it developed very slowly and through this. This groove method came about. And then I started to teach all my classes very differently. I was stopped wanting my students to follow me or copy me or try to do movements like me. And I really wanted them to learn how to move their body their own way and get in touch with their own authenticity and creativity. And it very quickly culminated into the groove method, which is now in 20 countries. We've got several hundred facilitators that now offer the groove dance floor experience. But it came about through this awakening that I had. And through this awakening, what was so profound is that when I started dancing for myself and I started being authentic and I started allowing myself to be and act and say and do and dress and express myself truly authentically, how I felt. Bulimia literally just left me. I didn't even try to stop throwing up and hurting myself. It just disappeared. Like it went away. And I started to actually begin to appreciate what my body and love it for what it is and stop comparing it or judging it to other people. And I know when I look in the mirror, I know I'm honest with myself. I don't look like those supermodels and I don't look like those hot shot airbrush bullshit that's out there. I don't look like that. But I came to a deep understanding that I'm not supposed to and I don't need to. And that is not required for my happiness. What's required for my happiness is being okay with me and dancing. Well, for me, grooving puts me in that state and puts me in that state very quickly and allows me to feel so good in my body that I didn't want to abuse my body anymore. I Stopped exercising so much and funnily enough, funnily I don't even know if it's a word. I just. I lost weight. My body just started to do what it needed to do because I wasn't at war with myself anymore. I started to move for the sake of feeling good instead of looking good. I started to play with my body in such a creative way that I wanted to get to know it and I wanted to let my movement heal me instead of abuse me. And I realized all my movement in the past, I was just trying to fight and push my body into submission to be thin or to be fit. And when I let all that go and I just moved to feel good, that doesn't mean I don't challenge myself. That doesn't mean that I don't push my physical body. I love that because I don't want to lose the capacities of my body. But the intention behind it completely changed and because of that, the way I felt changed and grooving has transformed my life and I know that it has for so many people around the world. I have been fortunate enough to go to oh my travel circle the globe 10, 15 times now and been to multiple countries and brought thousands of people together to experience this dance, this group dance experience together. And it truly is mind boggling how profound the experience is and yet how simple it is and how un intimidating it is and how unscary it is. And it's just such a cool space that is non judgmental and safe for you to express yourself and be authentic to who you are. So that's who I am. Misty Tripoli and the Groove and the Groove Dance floor experience. And I really true hope that you get to experience it or you get to find a dance floor in your area. We're growing quickly and we are in need of more facilitators. If you're interested in learning how to facilitate the Groove dance floor experience, there's a link below. Find us. This truly is a revolutionary way of experiencing dance together as a group. And it truly is just a freaking cool groovy movement experience that anyone can do. I invite you to the dance floor. I hope you can make it out and peace and love to all. And I hope that you don't abuse yourself and you learn to find your authentic self and treat yourself with absolute kindness and don't ever expect anyone else to until you learn to do it yourself.
