Another day, another ache…

At the rate I whine about aches and pains, you would think that I’m actually an eighty-year-old rather than an active gal in her twenties.

As anticipated, last night’s swing dance adventure left me hobbling off to bed with visions of muscle ointment and ice packs dancing in my head. Last night’s lesson was on...drum role please...Kicking! Or, to be more precise, we were learning the Charleston.

One of the difficult things about swing dance is trying to maintain proper alignment and spacing between partners. We have to slightly offset our stance so that we are stepping between each other’s feet, rather than crunching our partner’s toes. As you can imagine, when both partners are kicking, this position becomes infinitely more important. It sounds easy in theory, but many have a hard time mastering it in practice.

Thankfully, most guys are pretty good about not tromping on toes. Unfortunately, because we have to rotate partners often, I got saddled with the ‘weakest link’ in the class for one of the first Charleston demos. I know folks…it sounds very harsh, but it’s totally justified. After being kicked in the shins several times and clumsily manhandled like an old battered piece of luggage, you would start to loose compassion as well. What really made me cringe, was the fact that this guy seemed to wearing steel-toe-esque shoes. Imagine cheap, rimmed dress shoes with bricks attached to the front…or at least they felt like bricks as the consistently collided with my shins! No matter how I spaced myself, this guy could not master the art of kicking straight. I gritted my teeth and mentally delivered several blunt Mortal Kombat-style kicks to his head. Either this guy is a complete n00b who has no idea how to treat a woman, or he’s not the full shilling. “Queer as a bottle of chips,” also comes to mind…

Thankfully hubby turned out to be the “Charleston Master” and was able to help me learn the proper technique after class - without killing my shins. Go figure; my husband manages to understand the most awkward looking dance move. I guess he’s naturally inclined to pick up on the abnormal…not too sure what that says about myself?