Lessons from the Spastic People.....

I decided tonight that there are lessons to be learned from the spastic people.

There is a guy in my line dance class who is positively spastic. Want me to see how many times I can say the word "spastic" in one blog post? Okay.

He has no sense of rhythm whatsoever. If there is a turn in the choreography, you can bet he's going to turn in the wrong direction. If there is a clap, his will come a full beat (or two) after everyone else in the room. If it's a rock step, he's doing a triple step. If it's a grapevine, he's doing a shuffle. The poor guy can't even stand in front of the mirror, because everything is backward. Dancing backward might actually be an improvement for him.

But he comes every week, and he enjoys himself immensely. He knows he's terrible, he makes fun of himself, but by golly he keeps trying. Every now and then he'll ask Tonya to repeat her instruction of a difficult step, and everyone in the room (except possibly him) knows he won't get it that time either.

He leaves his workout in the weight room to come to line dancing. At which he sucks. Terribly.

Watching him tonight, however, I realized I could take some lessons from him.

The spastic people have much more fun than the rest of us.

If I was terrible at line dancing, if I couldn't get the steps, if I had no sense of rhythm, if I knew I was terrible and I knew everyone in the room knew it, I wouldn't come anymore. I would find something at which I COULD succeed, and I would do that because it would make me feel good about myself. You don't see me out there trying to scuba dive in front of people, do you? No. Because I suck at it. I tried once, in a murky lake, sucked up a week's worth of oxygen, went back to the surface and drank a beer, never to scuba dive again.

I might be a happier person if I were spastic. I could have a good time and not care if I got the steps right. I could appreciate the camaraderie and the fellowship of my fellow dancers without worrying about timing my Lindy steps perfectly or making my turns finish in the right spot. I wouldn't be embarrassed when I miss a step or completely forget an entire sequence in the middle of a dance I've done a hundred times.

Here's to the spastic people. They know how to have a good time.

Bookends of Conflict......

We started out the day with a girl fight over a cell phone, the second time in ten days this particular flake student has had a cell phone "stolen." She accused another girl, someone who usually avoids conflict like the plague. The accused took all she could take, then she proceeded to beat the slop out of the accuser. Whose cell phone turned up in the parking lot when her mother came to pick her up from school. They are both suspended from school for the rest of the week. Too bad for one of them; not enough for the other.

Then at line dancing tonight ........ LINE DANCING FERCRYINOUTLOUD ....... AT THE YMCA!!!!! ....... there was a near mutiny. I won't bore you with the details, but there are two twits in the line dancing group who like to show off and put turns, spins, leaps, and silliness into the dances where they aren't choreographed. One of them is a high school cheerleader, so you can almost forgive her. The other one is grown, though, and should know better. We were into our first dance of the night when one of the regulars marched out. She'd had all the silliness she could take. Then Mr. Patel, who must be around 70 years old but loves him some line dancing, began to complain, saying if those two were going to disrupt the rest of us, they should go stay in the back. [I didn't bother pointing out that in line dancing we often rotate and face all four walls, and they would at some point HAVE to be in the front.]

Our sweet little (she must weigh all of 90 pounds) instructor tried to tell him that she can't tell people HOW to dance, and he continued to complain. Loudly.

They get on my nerves too, but I mostly ignore them. I guess I can see both sides of the issue. They are entitled to do the dances any way they see fit, but I can also see where Mr. Patel and some of the others might find them a bit distracting. Some people aren't secure enough in their own dancing, and they depend upon watching some of the other dancers. If what they're watching isn't what they've been taught, they get confused. This is, however, billed as an "advanced beginner to intermediate" class, and many of them have been dancing together since last summer.

Personally, I've had my fill of conflict already this week.

To Members of the 6:30 Spin Class......

Dear Spinners:

Do you think we haven't seen you scowling in the door during the final minutes of our line dancing class on Monday nights?

Yeah, I'm talking to you.

Your expressions fairly shout, "They call THAT exercise?" I think I've even caught a couple of you rolling your eyes at one another. You huddle outside the door, peering in the window impatiently every couple of minutes, waving your towels and your water bottles and stretching every now and then.

Tonight we get word that we have to end our class five minutes early so you can line your little trikes up. Excuse me, but are you MORE entitled to your sixty minutes than we are? We pay the same dues. We had 17 in our line dancing class tonight. How many of you spinners showed up? It was almost a moot point, because I had the opportunity to run over your skinny little instructor in the parking lot. I still owe her one for that last step aerobics class of hers that I went to. Emphasis on last.

I know for certain that we don't burn nearly the number of calories that you do.

But how about we do this:

You wear your little spandex size twos and haul your pretend bicycles to a country and western bar somewhere near Atlanta, and we'll see who comes out of there alive.

Boot scoot boogie this.

Bragger