I had my first tap class today.
Far out. Lucky I have my girl to help me between lessons.
I have never had a dance lesson before. I have never worn tap shoes, except to buy them. Before I went to the lesson I put them on early so that I could have a practice of that thing tap dancers do, where the front half of their foot swooshes the floor before they put their foot down. Then they do it with the other foot. So I practiced this for a while until I could usually do it. Cool.
Then I went to my lesson. Lots of women there who had been doing it for years and a few other newbies.
I thought we might warm up with stretches or something. Instead we warmed up with an exercise, which sounded like "holding the bar, right obla boolaba, back oblaboolaba, dada dada, stepballchange, and again, oblaboolaba, ooblaboolaaba shuffle, shuffle, stepbalchange turn, left " Then she was quiet for a bit so that my friends could slowly show me which bit of their feet they were using to do all that with, and I sort of learned it.
And straight after that we did something else. Which I could actually understand! Though I couldn't exactly remember the sequence well enough to keep up.
And then I think we did other exercises, which were not so hard because they were the same step over and over for a couple of minutes or so. Except I wasn't actually sure which bits of my feet were supposed to hit the floor in which order, so as to actually do that step.
Lucky they have 2 teachers. One for the rest of the class. And one for me.
And then, we learned an incredibly long routine with 15-20 things to do in it one after the other (lasts about 2 minutes I guess), of which I can remember the first 5 seconds, and also when the first 5 seconds is repeated with the other foot I can do that section ... if I realize that that's the bit we're up to...
After a while I think it turned out that many of the things we had "learned" were part of a long sequence we were to dance to music, while holding a stick. I do smile watching the teacher dance it. I do like watching dancing!!
And I can do it when they show me about 4 steps really slowly over and over and give me time to learn that bit before they totally confuse me by adding another section on to it.
Fortunately there are bits that make sense to the girl. While I could still remember the rhythm of the first exercise, I told her about it, and she changed it into words and showed it to me.
And there was a kind lady who said to me "The only thing you must remember, is don't give up. I just started last year and the first term was torture, but then it came together". But mind you I found out though she said she just started last year, she had done 2 years as a child.
The teachers are fine. I have known them for a long time, and watched them show children how to do whatever it is over and over, the way they show me, and they don't seem phased at all by the way I stare intently and wide eyed at what they are doing before I do something else.
At any rate, after being there a short while I was strongly reminded of how I felt last weekend on a new waterslide down which I slid shrieking "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG Shi-i-i-i-i-i-it OMG OMG OMG".
Finding myself still alive in the water afterwards I went looking for someone else to have another go with me!
I am really not too sure why I am even doing this class you know. I think it might strengthen my ankles. Mainly I just think it would be totally cool to be able to follow a proper dance routine and make my body do what I planned it to do!!
