Lord-Ess of the Dance

I love to dance.  One of my earliest memories is of me as a toddler doing the twist, much to the delight of my parents who were obviously easy to amuse and didn’t get out much.  So when my friend Hallie asked me to take an adult tap class with her, I said yes.  I live for the dance.  My duty is to dance.  I’m Lordess of the Dance!

This particular tap class was a four-week trial to see if we’d like to take an entire semester.  I hated to spend money on tap shoes if I wasn’t going to continue, but luckily my sister, who had taken tap for years as an adult, let me borrow a pair.

When the first class arrived, I was ready.  I had on my trendy t-shirt, jazzy stretch pants and matching Joe Boxer socks.  However, I should have tried on the tap shoes prior because they were too big!  But something like that wouldn’t interfere with the performance of a natural dancer like me!

Actually, the shoes didn’t interfere with my dancing: I just couldn’t do the steps!  How could that be?  I had won dance contests in my youth; I had been dancing in clubs since I was sixteen years old and I had taken modern and jazz.  But there was something about pounding my feet on the floor that wasn’t working!  And since I was sweating like a pig I must have been wearing too many clothes.  It had to be better the next time.

Or not!  Even though I wore fewer clothes, I still worked up a major sweat.  Why wasn’t anyone else dripping?  How come they looked like the instructor, yet I looked like a River Dancer on crack?

And there was smug Hallie, shuffling off to Buffalo like she had been taking the class forever.  I couldn’t let her show me up: I’m too competitive!  So I concentrated and observed myself in the frightening “wall of mirrors”, but no way could I reconcile what I was doing with what the instructor and other students were doing.  My grapevine looked like grape jelly.  My ball change looked like spare change; and my riff was more like ruff!  I was mortified, to say the least...

Apparently the instructor wasn’t too pleased with my performance, or lack of it.  By the last class she was so exasperated she went to the door, closed it, and said she wasn’t going to open it until I was able to do our entire routine from start to finish.  With that threat hanging over my head, and the other students glowering at me, I was finally able to do the routine!  I guess fear is a major motivator…

Afterwards the instructor was so pleased she asked if I wanted to continue.  But putting my injured ego aside, I realized I may be a dancer, but I’m not a tap dancer.  I gave the big tap shoes back to my sister.

Don’t feel bad for me: my dancing days aren’t over.  Every so often you can still find me at the club.  I dance around the house, much to the delighr of the pets.   And when I happen across a dance tune on one of the TV music channels: look out.  So don't worry:  the Lordess of the Dance lives on!