It's no secret that I LOVE dancing. I can literally feel the music. No, it's not always pretty, but dang it, it's FUN!  Did you ever see the episode of FRIENDS when somebody stole Monica's credit card and took dance lessons, so she, Rachel and Phoebe went to stake it out?



I love that, "You don't OBSERVE a dance class. You TAKE a dance class!"  That could be my mantra.

Now, there is no adult tap class at my studio. I've been bucking for one for a couple of years, but it just didn't happen. So the tap instructor suggested I take a children's tap class. Now, by children, we mean ages 9-14. I thought, "Hey, why not."  Em's in that class, and if it got bad, I trust she'd let me know. I've done it since September, and she hasn't said anything yet!

So, it's Parent Watch Week. One week every other month, parents are invited to sit in on the dance classes. I basically moved into the studio this week, with Matt and Emily dancing pretty much all the time! So last night is tap. Darren took the boys home, but then came back to watch (we are about 3 blocks from the studio, and the boys can handle that for 45 minutes). Of course, there are a gazillion parents in the studio. I swallowed my pride, put on my tap shoes, and took my place.

And let me tell you...I DANCED! She works us HARD! Shim shams, flaps, buffaloes, perididdles, jump hop combos...you name it, we warmed it up. I had a group of Moms sitting next to Darren cheering me on. I kept saying, "YOU can do this, too!"  Nobody took me up on my invitation.

We danced the recital routine. It's loosely based on the HS Musical 2 song where they're batting.  We're adding stuff, of course, but the combos we're working on now are the part in the infield toward the middle of the song.



Anyway, there I am with my "baseball bat," tapping away. At one point, the little ones were getting lazy, not going completely down, touching the floor. The instructor say, "Girls, you can DO THIS!  If I can do it, and if Valerie can do it, then CERTAINLY you can do it!"  I was cracking up.

Anyway, by the end of the class, I was sweating, wiped out, exhausted and exhilerated. I didn't make a fool of myself. There are women in that class completely shocked that I did this!

Last night, DH told me, "I heard some women talking about you. They were VERY IMPRESSED that you did that."  He also said that he didn't realize tap was such a workout!  He said, "It's not the shuffle steps that Emily did when she was younger."

Oh, no way...we're in the BIG LEAGUES NOW!