November 22, 2021: Baby Steps in the Second Row -

I take a dance class designed “for the aging dancer,” and I love it. I AM the aging dancer, maybe even The Platonic Aging Dancer.

It’s a great dance class, sometimes even thrilling. I have taken it twice in the past week, the first two dance classes Since.

It’s good news/bad news.

Good news: I can still dance! (I’ve been dancing since I was four. I was assuming I could still dance.) Bad news: I lost my place in the front row.

The nub of this dance class – and many others – is following along with what the teacher does in the front of the room. She doesn’t spend much time describing what she is doing, and she doesn’t pause. So the challenge is to look and copy as well as you can, as fast as you can. If you are a seasoned dancer, you know the visual vocab, you follow quickly, sometimes you even anticipate where she will go next. But at base it’s a matter of seeing and insta-mimicking.

Seeing is a challenge. You can find a place on the floor where you can see the teacher, but people will be moving, and you will lose sight. You can hope to see her in the mirror, but again, you’ll lose your sight line, plus you have to transpose for the mirror.

SO.

In a dance class where everyone understands the unspoken etiquette, good dancers take the front row, and if you are less experienced, you stand in the second row, or further back. Then, when the less-experienced people lose sight of the teacher, they have other dancers they can follow, depending on which sight line is open.

(In the kindest classes, very short dancers also get the front, but they still need to be Good Enough to Follow.  (If professionals drop in, they step back, another show of courtesy. It’s complicated.  The main thing is: With the front row comes Great Responsibility.))

(I didn’t realize this etiquette was invisible to newbies until a few years ago, when two strange men showed up in class. They were not aging dancers so much as aspiring dancers. They took places in the front row, because that made perfect sense:  they were planning to learn, and they needed to see the teacher.

I wanted to kill them.  Because when they screwed up - which they did constantly, being beginners - everyone who was cuing off of them went down in flames.  They didn’t notice. They had other things on their minds.)

Anyway. Back in the Before, we all knew each other, and I usually stood in front. And because I was reliable, other people were good with that.  

Well.

It’s been a long time – a year plus with no classes, then the past few months, when I was either post-operative, or in the UK. And during that time, some upstarts have filled the front row!  (I’m joking. We’re aging dancers; the upstarts are at least in their forties.)  Last week, I got there a few minutes early, and I ended up in the second row. Sigh.  

Fine. Today, I got there really early, and claimed a front row spot.

And then!

Then I screwed up! And the people behind me screwed up!

And then I fell into a shame toilet. Maybe my front row years were over! Who did I think I was?

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 I’ll do the second row next week. Maybe some day I’ll work my way back up. Baby steps.