Prudence, Week 10
Sooooooo, it turns out that dancing is kind of hard. It seems I am inflicted with a terminal case of UPD: Unco Person Disease. This unfortunate disability runs through my blood, having been passed down generation to generation in my unco-ordinated, pasty and seriously uncool family. The surprising thing is, until I took professional dance classes I never actually knew that I had such a serious case of UPD.
I had always had a niggling suspicion that I had a weak strand of UPD running through my veins. I have never been a massive dance-floor girl, only ever venturing out onto the dark, pulsating masses amongst the safety of, what shall we call it, a few too many vino’s. Once out there, I have always had to stick to the side-step shuffle with a slight finger wiggle. Anything outside of that was instantly deemed way too difficult. I couldn’t run the risk of looking like a poor man’s J-Lo!
However, I generally presumed that if I were given strict instructions on how to dance that I would discover that I too could be Jenny from the block. I have the derriere after all! So it was with naïve bundles of enthusiasm that I dragged my three closest friends to a hip-hop class in the city. The programme promised “fun, exhilarating and high energy moves that will be sure to get you toned and terrific in no time”. Well hello! We turned up in our coolest street gear (red tracksuit pants from Witchery and white singlets from Country Road. We arrived and to our shock horror – turns out we aren’t so ghetto). The instructor was a chipper young girl, in noted; Adidas matching ensemble, who just seemed so genuinely excited to see everybody there. She kept on clapping her hands and shrieking with glee whenever somebody new arrived. Kind of cute, but also kind of OTT. Anyway. She soon popped on the music and had everybody shaking and grooving to Beyoncé. Everybody, that is, but me. While my girlfriends were Popping, Gliding and doing the Harlem Shake, I just couldn’t seem to work it out. While they all moved one way, I seemed to be going in the other. I was constantly bumping into people, facing the wrong direction and just generally looking stiff and uncomfortable. I’d master one move but… a good 5-6 moves too late!
The bubbly little instructor kept calling out for me to “feel the music”, but all I could feel was the burn of embarrassment on my cheeks. Seriously!! At the end of the hour, the rest of the class were dripping with sweat, their chests heaving with exhaustion. I, on the other hand, was dry as a bone.
I am not sure that I will give hip-hop another go. I don’t know if it is worth fighting a losing battle against UPD.
