words, she clapped her hands and summoned everyone into starting positions with a hugely enthusiastic:
‘OK, girls. Let’s go!’
Normally I don’t respond to such a call, but I recognised my place as an ‘honorary girl’ and carefully positioned myself in the extreme back right-hand corner of the hall, which seemed to be the most private place I could find, short of being in the storage cupboard.
The first song began, unrecognisable, but driven by a strong, pulsating Latin rhythm. Sandra counted to four and then suddenly everyone was off. Instructions were barked and the ‘girls’ duly followed. They clearly knew what they were doing. For them, it was like practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months. For me, the experience was different. It was like being thrown into a room where . . . well, where ladies were practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months.
I had no clue what was coming, or what to do once it had arrived. The moves seemed to run for eight bars of the music. This gave me enough time to sort out my direction and begin to make some pathetic attempt at the move that was being done by everyone else in the room. However, just at the very moment when I’d begun to establish what was required for that move, Sandra would bark instructions for another. The process would then repeat. There appeared to be about five moves for the entire song, and each time they repeated, I was able to make a better fist of getting them right. But then the track finished. Sandra looked at me and smiled.
‘Well done, Tony, not bad!’
For the second track, I made going in the right direction my main priority. The session for the lady to my left was being made more testing by the need to keep an eye out for the idiot to her right. Suddenly a huge sweeping move to the right was required, bringing me into direct contact with the outer wall of the village hall – which I could now confirm, was very well-constructed. Worse still, it meant that all the ladies in the room were facing me, and they could see that I was not even beginning to do any of the things that were required of me. Now in the spotlight, I just guessed at what I should be doing, and flailed some arms and legs in a kind of medley of every move that had happened thus far. At the end of the song, and with the patience of a careworker, Sandra smiled at me encouragingly.
I was now getting very hot. I drank some water and decided that the tracksuit bottoms would have to come off. I’d booked for the full hour of torture, so I might as well be comfortably attired. Besides, I thought I looked pretty good in shorts.
As the next song raged into life, something alarming began to happen. It became clear that the elastic had gone in the waistband of the shorts and that what had been holding them up before had been the elastic in the waist of the tracksuit bottoms. Any jolty movement from me now meant that my shorts started to fall down. I clutched at them with one hand, but Sandra was constantly calling for us to wave our arms about. I tried, but to let go for too long was risky. Shorts around the ankles, in front of a group of women at my first village hall event, was unthinkable. Better to fail even more hopelessly than before with each move, than to tarnish my reputation for years to come.
At the end of that track, I rushed quickly over to my base camp and put my tracksuit bottoms back on. Sandra glanced in my direction, perhaps thinking that I was leaving.
‘You all right, Tony?’
‘Yes. Yes, thanks. Just putting my tracksuit bottoms back on.’
The same ones that she, and everyone else, had observed me removing three minutes earlier.
‘You’re doing well,’ she said.
Sandra was a fine dancer, a good teacher, but an absolutely fabulous bullshitter. If I was doing well , then just how low could her expectations of me have been at the start? I was only doing well because I hadn’t killed anyone or napalmed the
‘OK, girls. Let’s go!’
Normally I don’t respond to such a call, but I recognised my place as an ‘honorary girl’ and carefully positioned myself in the extreme back right-hand corner of the hall, which seemed to be the most private place I could find, short of being in the storage cupboard.
The first song began, unrecognisable, but driven by a strong, pulsating Latin rhythm. Sandra counted to four and then suddenly everyone was off. Instructions were barked and the ‘girls’ duly followed. They clearly knew what they were doing. For them, it was like practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months. For me, the experience was different. It was like being thrown into a room where . . . well, where ladies were practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months.
I had no clue what was coming, or what to do once it had arrived. The moves seemed to run for eight bars of the music. This gave me enough time to sort out my direction and begin to make some pathetic attempt at the move that was being done by everyone else in the room. However, just at the very moment when I’d begun to establish what was required for that move, Sandra would bark instructions for another. The process would then repeat. There appeared to be about five moves for the entire song, and each time they repeated, I was able to make a better fist of getting them right. But then the track finished. Sandra looked at me and smiled.
‘Well done, Tony, not bad!’
For the second track, I made going in the right direction my main priority. The session for the lady to my left was being made more testing by the need to keep an eye out for the idiot to her right. Suddenly a huge sweeping move to the right was required, bringing me into direct contact with the outer wall of the village hall – which I could now confirm, was very well-constructed. Worse still, it meant that all the ladies in the room were facing me, and they could see that I was not even beginning to do any of the things that were required of me. Now in the spotlight, I just guessed at what I should be doing, and flailed some arms and legs in a kind of medley of every move that had happened thus far. At the end of the song, and with the patience of a careworker, Sandra smiled at me encouragingly.
I was now getting very hot. I drank some water and decided that the tracksuit bottoms would have to come off. I’d booked for the full hour of torture, so I might as well be comfortably attired. Besides, I thought I looked pretty good in shorts.
As the next song raged into life, something alarming began to happen. It became clear that the elastic had gone in the waistband of the shorts and that what had been holding them up before had been the elastic in the waist of the tracksuit bottoms. Any jolty movement from me now meant that my shorts started to fall down. I clutched at them with one hand, but Sandra was constantly calling for us to wave our arms about. I tried, but to let go for too long was risky. Shorts around the ankles, in front of a group of women at my first village hall event, was unthinkable. Better to fail even more hopelessly than before with each move, than to tarnish my reputation for years to come.
At the end of that track, I rushed quickly over to my base camp and put my tracksuit bottoms back on. Sandra glanced in my direction, perhaps thinking that I was leaving.
‘You all right, Tony?’
‘Yes. Yes, thanks. Just putting my tracksuit bottoms back on.’
The same ones that she, and everyone else, had observed me removing three minutes earlier.
‘You’re doing well,’ she said.
Sandra was a fine dancer, a good teacher, but an absolutely fabulous bullshitter. If I was doing well , then just how low could her expectations of me have been at the start? I was only doing well because I hadn’t killed anyone or napalmed the
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