fbhjr | On dancing

I was not coordinated as a child. Add the dyslexia to that, and I was a
terrible dancer.
But, for a month every school year our gym classes were devoted to square
dancing.
Gym was my worst class as it was. I spent far more time reading, building
models and playing the violin when young then playing any sports.

I had a particularly hard time with square dancing because of how my
hearing works as well. I always score high on hearing tests, but have a
lot of difficulty differentiating words from background noise. So, trying
to figure out what the poor quality phonograph record was telling me to do,
while trying to figure out which direction I was supposed to be moving,
while actually trying to make my limbs move that way was very difficult for
me.

The worst time was in 7th grade when I messed it all up and cause a
multi-person collision with the other dancers. The young women in the
dancing group thought it was quite hilarious, and there was no chance they
were laughing with me.

As I tried to untangle myself from the other people I had run into, the gym
teacher came up to me.
“Think you’re funny, don’t you?” he asked.
“No sir,” I said.
“Trying to show off and goof around,” he said, not a question.
“No sir. It’s very hard for me to do and I got confused.”
“Detention tonight!” he shouted. “You’ll do 500 push ups and we’ll see if
you still think it is funny then!”
The only thing I thought was even remotely fair was he made the girls who
laughed at me stay after and do pushups too.

I know, I know.
“Frank that was 35 years ago, let it go.”
And, to a large extent I have. I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the
other people involved and only have the vaguest memory of what they even
looked like.

But, I still don’t like dancing.
And, the closer it is to square dancing, the less I like it.
I really can’t shake the idea that I’m going to end up at the bottom of a
pile of people with other people laughing at me.

On dancing

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