Chapter Eleven

I learned that there are thousands of different ways to walk in modern dance. I didnt realize I had so many options! I learned this today when our illustrious professor of dance skipped to our floor routine. She was still rather under the weather, and not quite her usual extrovert self, apparently battling a stomach virus. I believe it is the same virus I have been fighting all week as well. After collecting our attendance cards, the prof asked us to line up into six lines. We were going to learn how to move across the floor.

We began by walking forward, and of course, this wasnt by any means a normal walk. We had to hold our chins up as if we were royalty looking towards the basketball net on the opposite side of the gym. Our arms were slightly rounded at our sides, and our finger tips resting lightly by our hips. We began with our right foot pointed behind us, and our left foot pointed out.

"Now," explained my prof, "drag your right toes through and step keeping your foot pointed out, like a duck. Then drag your left foot through. Right foot! Left foot! Right foot! Left foot! NOW STOP! wait wait keep that right foot behind you! Very cool! I just got 45 people to all 'dip' at the same time! Great job gals!"

She then proceeded to demonstrate how we were to rotate and then begin walking backwards, pushing our leg back as far as it could reach with each step. I almost fell over twice. Turned the wrong direction nearly every time. Wait, turn to the left? Ohhhhh!!!...my other left!!!! Sigh. Dance is not an activity for the directionally challenged, I thought. Up to this point, we had only been "walking."

"Now we're gonna spiral to our right. Look over that right shoulder. Plant your left foot, and POW! Strong hand to the top! You should be facing the bleachers...no the other bleachers. Yes, over here, this way. There you go." She directed her words towards me as I turned helplessly around in a circle trying to figure out which way to go. "Another strong hand! POW! and pleir (plee-ay) with our arms to the sides as if we're holding the entire world...look up! look up!!!...this is heavy!" Ok, not too bad so far...with the exception of the few spins I had to do, I'm not doing too badly...I hope...

"Now, we're going to spiral yet again, releve, and walk forward with our drag until we go off stage. Good job girls." Then she said those most dreaded words I just loathe to hear: " Lets do it up to tempo with music." she added, "Then we'll go in our separate lines of six people at a time. Those in the front will be first."

I looked around and found I was suddenly in the front of the line. In my distracted, wifty state, I failed to hear the part about regrouping into lines and performing the floor routine in smaller groups of six. Well, this is the last day of modern dance. I'm older than these kids. I have no pride. Surely I can make a fool of myself in front of the whole class. Better to get it over with now, I consoled myself.

So my prof started the music, counted off, and from the beginning I had the whole routine screwed up. Somehow I ended up on the wrong foot, which made my first turn impossible to go the correct direction. I missed the strong hand position, was behind a few beats for the strong hand position, totally missed the plier, fouled up the releve, and managed to walk off with my feet hitting the floor at the wrong time on the opposite leg I was supposed to be using. And, sadly, I couldnt hide this time amongst the other 44 students in class. Nope, it was me and five other gals, in the middle of the gymnasium, all by our lonesomes, and I was doing a "solo" routine. My only consolation was watching all the other girls have their turn, though it was a small consolation, considering I was the only one out of 45 people who totally and completely screwed up the routine. I always knew there was a reason I stuck to the visual arts.