Things I learnt (aka things I already knew and were well and truly driven home) when I tried to learn to dance.

I have a friend, we’ll call her Amelia. Mostly we’ll call her that cause it’s her name, but also, it’s a pretty name for a person, so it’s a fun little twist that I get to have a friend with this name. She has spent countless hours throughout her life dancing. Ballet, jazz, modern, hip hop, and tap through college too – you name it, she’s done it. Except I don’t know if she’s done interpretative dance, so I will ask about that one. Anyway, she has also recently attended a couple “learn to dance to a famous song” classes. It’s on this last point that, in a moment of weakness on my part, she convinced me to join her for a class. I should of known how bad it was going to be when my greatest sadness was realized by Justin Bieber’s Sorry not being run in any of the time slots we could make (Hannah run now, run very far away from this idea right now. You've still got time to say no.). But we got past this initial hurdle, and we chose a song we felt really represented us, that we could connect to, that would be easy to move to, and we could really make our own. Of course, I know by now you’ve surely guessed what song really captures the absolute spirit of Amelia and I. Yep, you guessed it. Rihanna’s BBHMM. So us, right? I know. Classic Hannah and Amelia. Those two always going hard at life, listening to Rihanna. I digress. Back to the class.

It was hard. It was funny. It was … educational to me about all the things I am really not good at, in case I was ever in danger of forgetting them. Here I present to you a short list of things I learnt while trying to learn to dance to BBHMM.

1. I am not co-ordinated. Like, I’ve always known this, but being faced with my lack of coordination in the mirror right in front of me really sent this message home. Think the coordination levels of a baby deer trying to walk for the first time. Kinda cute in an awkward way, and you know she’ll get to the end of song but it is very hard to watch and you just wanna swoop in there and hold her hand so she’ll have a bit more balance.
2. I am not gangster, or tough, and don’t have any attitude of any kind. But our instructor sure did. Man, she had some great faces, and great energy, and real attitude to go with it. Me? I mean I really tried to go for the “I will fuck you up if you mess with me” look. I really did try. But think what it would look like if your mum danced to Rihanna. Any Rihanna song. Any mum really. If your mum is cool and dances well, then think of someone else’s mum. Then make it ten times more cringe worthy. And you have rough idea of what I look like when trying to convey attitude while dancing and being ten moves behind and generally not coping.
3. I do not have a good memory for many things in a short period of time. Trying to remember the sequence of the moves was as hard, if not more, than trying to do the moves themselves. I kept seeing people around me remember all of the moves, in the right order, and ended up mostly copying people instead of trying to remember it on my own. The concentration was ruining my “I will fuck you up if you mess with me face” anyway.
4. I am not good at taking instruction. I mean, I knewwww this one already, as do most people who meet me. I ended up just picking and choosing which moves I followed, and moving how I wanted to move in the bits in between. Which, as it turns out, means moving like a 52 year old white woman named Deborah. So when you watch the video, please know that I look like that on purpose, OK? Def on purpose.  

You can check out the video here.