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2006-11-01 - 8:28 p.m. Ask me how much I loved my flamenco class on Monday? Yeah, a lot. I think how much I enjoy the class is inversely proportional to how little I want to go. And, boy, I didn't want to go on Monday. It was icy; it was dark; it was cold; I was tired; I just wanted to stay home and never move again. It took all the grit and determination I possess as well as a good dose of positive self-talk to get me out the door. I haven't told you about my class have I? It is held in a tiny portable trailer behind a Spanish church. It has a plywood floor that is in splinters from all the stomping (I had no idea how much stomping there is in flamenco). The teacher is a middle-aged, balding, blonde and rosy man named Paedro who has a thick Spanish accent. The class is three-quarters rank beginners who find it impossible to coordinate anything and one quarter a trio of friends who have taken salsa and ballroom and who sometimes know what they are doing. The trio are cocky and show-offy and full of themselves and nobody likes them, which is fine because they more than make up for it by how much they like themselves. I actually don't care much except that there is a sense from them that the rest of us are just holding them back, but, heck, it's a beginner class after all. I've decided that there is some weird value in doing something that I am completely stupid and hopeless at. I've never really tried hard to learn something physically and I've never taken dance. I'm not particularly coordinated or rhythmical and it shows. But on the other hand I don't have a lifetime of playing sports or taking physical-type classes to draw on either so how do I really know what I'd be like if I had that? I am really a beginner. It's hard - trying to do the footwork, and the arms, and keep track of the skirt and the heels and the music and the clapping and the stomping. But it is a lot of fun. A lot, a lot of fun.
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