Saturday, March 21, 2009

Dancing lessons, life lessons


Today, children are hustled from dance class to piano lessons to soccer practice to karate. That's the three year olds. And that's only on Thursdays. The other six days are busier.

But back in the days when a three year old was considered a baby and only the rich kids took dance AND piano, the little Dale girls spent every summer in little pink or black leotards and tights with the feet cut out. Instead of piano lessons, we took Modern Dance classes on the college campus where Daddy worked.

With dreamy music playing in the background, we glided like gazelles, twirled like the wind, and drifted to the floor like melting chocolate. There was no right or wrong way to do any of it, which was good news for me because my arms and legs grew at an alarming rate for the first ten years of my life and my body took quite a while to catch up. I'm sure an observer peering through the window would have wondered what a spastic scarecrow was doing in there among the graceful gazelles.

But I didn't care. I loved it.

Those summer dance classes taught me some important lessons:

- Dance in your bare feet, any time you get the chance.

- If your leotards are pink, do not wear flowered underwear.

- Do what you love, even if you're the scarecrow.

......

Related post:
Piano lessons, life lessons

2 comments:

The Retired One said...

I loved this post!!

Fran Hill said...

Ah, memories! I think my Games teacher at school learned more from the dance lessons we had with her than we did. She learned that teenage girls don't want to country-dance, they want to disco, and that they can fit disco moves to just about any country tune she could think of. We had great fun in her lessons. I don't think she felt the same.

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