The Rhythm of Life

I’m someone who has made clumsiness an art form.

Dance was never really a part of my life. Despite growing up in the 1970s, disco passed me by. My parents were God-fearing Methodists who attended a tiny church with a congregation that barely made it into double figures and consisted mainly of old ladies in hats. Due to the advanced age of the latter, strenuous social activities were out – with the result that my weekends were spent not at dances but at Beetle drives. Even someone with my total lack of co-ordination could manage to shake a die out of a tumbler and then draw the part of the beetle’s body that corresponded to the number of spots.

But as I grew older, dance began to insinuate itself into other areas of my existence. Every year of Junior school, I dreaded the Christmas party and the obligatory four weeks of ‘dancing lessons’ beforehand. Instead of PE in the hall, we would all line up in our aertex tops and navy-blue gym knickers (I think the boys probably wore shorts) and form two parallel rows of girls and boys. The record known as ‘March of the Mods’ would be placed on the turntable, and then the teacher would direct us through the steps: “Heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, forwards, backwards, one and two and three!” Even then, it was a struggle for me to co-ordinate the actions with the music – and this was the easiest dance!

By the time I started secondary school in 1978, the films ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Grease’ had made John Travolta a household name and the school disco became a termly ‘treat’. While everyone else swung their hips seductively or gyrated with the grace of a gazelle, I shuffled miserably from one foot to the other, completely clueless about what I was supposed to do. Was I meant to move my arms, for example? And if I did that, should it be in slow motion, as if I was swimming, or something more frenetic that suggested I had a wasp inside my clothing? I suffered through five years of this torture before sixth form started and the rest of my peers decided they’d outgrown such childish pursuits.

You might have thought I’d be able to avoid the terror that was dancing once I was an adult, but no – it turned out that weddings and birthday parties always included an obligatory turn on the dance floor. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but I’d see geriatric relatives strutting their stuff with insouciance, putting me to shame as I swayed miserably in a corner. Even my own children, traitors as they were, moved in time to the music, effortlessly cool, making me wonder how my own physical ineptitude had skipped a generation.

With all this in mind, you might wonder why, in my forties, I signed up for a weekly ‘Dancercise’ class. In my defence, I didn’t read the details properly: I saw there was an evening exercise class at the local community centre and thought it would be a good way of keeping fit. It was only as the class started and all the other women began to flow their way through complicated dance steps that I realised how out of my depth I was. We started off with three side steps to the right and then three to the left – something even I could manage; but then the instructor started spewing our random words I’d never heard of: “And grapevine, and double turn, and shimmy!” I watched as everyone else’s body undulated in a rhythmic ripple and tried to do the same; unfortunately, my own torso just twitched uncontrollably like a dying fly. “And gallop!” At least I could get that bit right. I galloped enthusiastically to the left, then realised that everyone else was galloping to the right. Scuttling sideways like a crab to avoid being mown down by a herd of co-ordinated, lycra-clad women, I began to wonder if I could slip out early while everyone else was concentrating on their quickstep and their jive.

Somehow, I managed to fumble my way through the rest of the session, sighing with relief when the thirty minutes of jigging about was over and we were able to concentrate on the ‘stretching’ element instead. Chatting to some of the other women as we left, I learned that they all attended ‘Modern Dance’ lessons at the centre in addition to ‘Dancercise’ – and some of them did ‘Tap and Ballet’ as well. It wasn’t surprising, then, that they knew all the steps; but I still think they had a natural rhythm that I just didn’t possess. I also knew that I was unlikely to return.

A few weeks later, I noticed an ad for ‘Zumba for Seniors’ and briefly wondered if that would be a better option – surely octogenarians with hip replacements wouldn’t gallop as quickly as the women in ‘Dancercise’. And then I remembered the grannies at the parties I’d been to and how even the ones with multiple hip and knee replacements had been able to move in time with the music, and I realised that I couldn’t even compete with people twice my age.

You’d think that this impressive catalogue of disasters would be enough to put me off dancing for life. However, like my children, my husband was as rhythmically blessed as I was dance illiterate and liked nothing better than to exhibit his talents on the dance floor at any given opportunity. Before me, he had been engaged to a girl called Lynda and the two of them had achieved notoriety with their raunchy dance routines that, frankly, made ‘Dirty Dancing’ look more like the senior exercise class I’d almost signed up for. He could tolerate me skulking in the corner while he did his best impression of Tony Manero, but I felt guilty that I never joined him in the sort of displays his ex-fiancée had gone in for.

Now, at the ripe old age of fifty-three, we had an anniversary coming up – and not just any anniversary either: it was our silver wedding and his parents’ golden one, with the two events occurring only months apart. What better excuse could there be for a big party? my husband asked, adding that his seventy-six-year-old mother still loved a good bop. That was when I knew I had to do something drastic: I would take dance lessons secretly and surprise him at the party.

My cover story was that I was going to keep-fit classes again, but as I left for my first clandestine dance lesson, Mark took me to one side, a concerned look in his eye. “Is this wise?” he wanted to know. “I mean, you got yourself into a bit of a mess last time.”

I assured him that this was a totally different class to ‘Dancercise’ and he seemed satisfied. Looking back, I wish he’d tried harder to convince me not to go because the woman who ran these sessions was the scariest individual I’ve ever met.

It didn’t start off too badly. The instructor was a tiny woman, half-Thai, half-German and we began with some gentle stretching exercises and then a walk-through of some of the most basic steps. However, once she switched on the music and increased the tempo, I suddenly found that my feet had forgotten everything and started looking down, desperately trying to remember the sequence.

This was the point where the tiny little lady suddenly morphed into full Gestapo mode, replacing the soft lilt of her Thai personality with a guttural German accent. “No!” she shrieked, banging on the floor with a cane. “You do not look at feet – you look at me!”

“But I have to look at my feet so I know what they’re doing,” I protested.

“Nein! Nein! Keine Füße! No feet!” And she rapped the back of my legs with her cane.

I kept my eyes on her for the rest of the session.

In the second lesson, I thought I was making progress, but the teacher was obviously not impressed.

“Why you no flow with music? Dance should be graceful – you must feel rhythm here.”

It was all very well for her to put her hand on my sternum and tap it like a drum, but I was hot and sweaty and I just wanted to get the lesson over and done with.

“I haven’t got any rhythm,” I muttered mutinously.

She was half an hour late for the lesson after that; and the following week, she didn’t turn up at all. I think even she had to admit defeat when it came to my lack of co-ordination.

In the end, I saved my money and practised dancing along to Youtube videos whenever Mark was otherwise occupied. I can’t say I was anywhere near Lynda’s standard, but at least I was beginning to do more than just nod my head or tap my foot.

After six weeks of torture, I began to feel that maybe I wasn’t such a terrible dancer after all. My feet were slowly beginning to catch on to the idea that they had to move at the same time as the rest of my body and I could actually visualise myself on the dance floor with Mark without breaking out into a cold sweat. Everything, it seemed, was falling into place – and then, two days before the party, Mark broke his toe.

It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic – the poor guy was in agony when it happened, although keeping a dumb bell on a shelf above the sofa was asking for trouble. (What if it had landed on his head and not his foot when it fell?) Nevertheless, I couldn’t help feeling annoyed that I’d gone to so much effort and now Mark would be the one sitting in the corner while everyone else danced themselves dizzy. In the end, we agreed that he would hobble into the centre of the room for the ‘couples dance’ that we and his parents were scheduled to give and that I would dance around him while he tapped his crutch in time to the music. He still had no idea that I’d been practising and was probably expecting my usual awkward shuffle. I couldn’t wait for him to see my solo samba and merengue.

As the hall began to fill with people, Mark squeezed my hand encouragingly. “I know you hate dancing,” he said, “ – especially in front of an audience – but it’ll be okay.”

The lights dimmed and the sound of The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’ began to float across the floor.

“See,” Mark whispered as his parents wrapped their arms around each other and began to slow dance, “even you can do this.”

Holding onto his crutch with one hand and me with the other, he began to sway gently, totally unaware that I’d had a whole dance routine planned. I closed my eyes and swayed with him. Later, I decided, I would show off the steps I’d learned; but for now, I would concentrate on the rhythm in my heart.