Comment: Taking the First Step (Shuffle Ball Change)

Wow, how did a whole month fly by?

I've just embarked on a quirky adventure I never thought I'd be reporting here, or anywhere, for that matter.

I'm taking a tap class.

Yup.

With the shoes with little silver taps on them (hence the name) and the whole leaping around with flailing arms magic that goes along with it.

I wouldn't be doing this but for two reasons:

1. My daughter just started ballet and tap, and it looked like fun
2. I told my friend there was an adult class starting and we decided impulsively to take it

Now, I have not taken a tap class in over 30 years. Yes. My tap friend wasn't even ALIVE when I was taking tap back in the late 70s.

So last night was our first class.

It was surreal.

There were only four of us, and our teacher, Raylene (not her real name). This class, it was immediately clear, was going to be different from any dance class we'd ever taken. Raylene is in a class all by herself.

She is an older lady with bright red hair, purple eye makeup, and quite a set of gams. She's one of the last of the original "show people". In between each dance step, she'd pause and tell us a story about her life. What a life! Young dancer marrying a tap master twice her age. Broadway, the whole shebang.

She doesn't so much teach as she does preach. She just talks and talks, and we tap a little, and I get confused, and then she talks some more, and then we tap. I sweat, I laugh at myself, and try to keep up.

See, it's an INTERMEDIATE class.

And like I said, it's been 30 years.

I think I got about 50% of the steps right.

Which actually is not bad.

The funny thing is, I almost didn't go. I really didn't feel like going out last night, to the first class. I was tired, bored, mentally atrophied from being home all day with a sick child. But after the class? Bubbly and content.

Stepping out of your comfort zone, is, literally, a good idea.

I can't wait to hear more about Raylene's life, to sweat a little, and work parts of my brain and body that have lain fallow for decades.



(Oh, and it's good to be blogging again.)