Shamekia McNeil Gales considers her line dancing group #GetFitWithMeeks a ministry—its members, her congregation; Justin Timberlake leading her opening hymn.
And in the half-mile loop of Raleigh’s Spring Forest Road Park where Gales hosts her free classes, anyone who is there at half past six on a Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday evening feels a part of her service. Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” echoes across the park from Gales’ speaker as she leads warm-up stretches, the sounds of members bickering like siblings or laughing like old friends filling the air. This camaraderie isn’t a foreign feeling for Gales.
In the seven years since hosting her first class in 2019, #GetFitWithMeeks has garnered over 900 members on Gales’ Facebook group.
“Line dancing has always been a part of my heritage at cookouts and family functions,” said Gales, who was a cheerleader and ran track and field in high school.
“I’ve always been a full-figured woman, and I had a child,” said Gales. “Then, as you put yourself on the back burner, I gained some weight. So I started line dancing at home, and I lost about 35 to 40 pounds.”
Some of the weight came back, but Gales, rather than sitting still, decided to take action and find a group. After all, line dancing, despite being a dance where soloists repeat a pattern of steps in a line, is a communal activity.
Logging onto her neighborhood app to find workout groups to join, one day, she mentioned her love for line dancing in hopes of bringing the hobby she loved out of her living room and finding people to dance next to her.
“I got an overwhelming response of, ‘Where are the line dance classes? When are you line dancing?’” she recalled, “so I told my husband, ‘What do you think if I started one?’”
Gales scoped out class locations and settled on Spring Forest Road Park, which has an open patio. Her family crafted the name #GetFitWithMeeks and on June 11, 2019, she played the first song from her speaker.
Since then, she’s never danced on the patio alone.
“Over the years, when I first started, sometimes I’d have four attendees, sometimes I’d have eight,” said Gales, who’s now 47 years old. “Then it grew to where I would have 12 and 15. Now, I can have anywhere from 35 to 50 people out here.,”
Classes are free, making it accessible to those who don’t have a gym membership.
“I know everybody may not be able to afford or keep up with paying for classes,” Gales said, adding that leading the classes helps her stay consistent with fitness goals.
Some participants happened across the class by chance: Gales’ voice—yelling steps like “Cha-cha!” or “Side-step!” from her mic—is hard to ignore. Curiosity attracts people to join the line, but it’s Gales’ charisma that draws most to stay.
Each member in line shares a different story. On many days, passersby jumping in could find Rodney, an older man who’s danced in line with Gales since the second week she started in 2019. Line dancing has grown to be a habitual hobby for him, wearing blue ear plugs to shield himself from the magnitude of Gales’ voice.
Other times, there’s young faces in-between the moms that frequent the classes, like a rising high school freshman dancing with a family friend or a girls softball team eager to line dance to cool down after practice.
These dynamics are what keeps Gales coming back three nights a week after finishing her shifts as a Purchasing Officer for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
“I don’t consider it just a class–I call us the ‘Get Fit family,’” Gales said. “We supported each other through ups, downs, [and] losses. I love them, and I truly want to make sure that everybody that’s in this family is well taken care of.”
Mutual care remains a pillar of #GetFitWithMeeks, and is reflected in her themed classes—like Freestyle Thursdays, when Gales lets members choose the dances, or Skirt Tuesdays, when members don jingle skirts. This class theme emerged when Gales, who said she previously wasn’t comfortable wearing skirts that exposed her legs, asked if anyone would join her.
“I said, ‘Y’all, I want to wear a skirt out here. Can somebody wear a skirt with me? Because I want to, but I’m too nervous to do it,” she said. “Four ladies did it with me.”
In these ways, the class members keep each other in line, both physically and emotionally.
“We’re family. We’re a ministry,” Gales said. And to the music of Lil Wayne and Beyonce, it’s a ministry that keeps giving and growing between each jazz box, coaster step, and shuffle.
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