A new question: how many people can dance, and what styles do you do well? I've just started taking salsa and swing lessons, and I think I'm picking them up pretty well. And it's so much fun!

I did some ballroom and swing in college, and enjoyed it, though I'm sure most of my memory of it is gone by now. Wouldn't mind picking it up again if I had a partner, though. I also did modern dance all through my childhood, though I SUCKED at it.

Outside of school, I learnt piano, singing, and steel drums. I learnt sewing, tennis, chemistry experiments, and crochet.

In school they taught us how to cook, farm, play recorder, field hockey, track and field and basic gymnastics.

Such a well-rounded girl am I.

DJ, I was just going to say that there seems to be two separate skill sets of childhood. What we were taught explicitly (dance lessons, music lessons etc) and what we learned by a novice/expert relationship with other kids not necessarily with adults. And you've succinctly described an aspect of the latter.

Every thursday in elementary school, PE was dance. Or if the weather sucked too much outside. Square dance, mainly. I don't remember the rest. It was CRUEL CRUEL TORTURE. I hated thursdays. That dread lasted years past elementary school. And no, I've never learned any dance since. Though that is more my general horror at group instruction than elementary trauma.

Like, can you ride a bike? Do a cartwheel? Catch, throw, hit a ball? Jump rope? Skate? Any other skill I didn't mention?

yes, yes*, yes, yes, eys, yes, yes. can't think of any.

*in my childhood, I could do cartwheels. However, I have not attempted a cartwheel since the gymnastics unit in high school, so I can't say for sure.

I'm so much more coordinated now than I was a kid, I should really try to learn more stuff again. I "played" tennis from like 5th through 12 grades and was always terrible, until the end of high school, when I finally started being able to deal with my body.

Oh, and I need to actually give my parents the dacing lessons I offered them for Christmas. Not that I'll be teaching, that I'll be buying.

ita, did you do handsprings? I think a goal of mine should be able to do a back handspring at 35.

Can you play any instrument? Hold a tune when singing?

I used to play piano, now, nsm. I can still sing, though!

I have a good sense of rhythm, but zero dance ability. I was never comfortable enough in my own skin as a child or teen to learn how to loosen up enough.

I also used to be a pretty good tennis player. I wish I'd kept it up.

The summer I was three years old, we had an extended stay at a motel with a pool, and I practically lived in the pool all summer.

I just learned on my own to swim underwater, I never learned to swim properly.

We haven't even hit on the childhood crafty and arts skills.