Ah, dancing. I have been known to remark "Do they have chips in their heads telling them what to do?" while watching people square dance, which tells you a little something about my physical coordination.
Natter 41: Why Do I Click on ita's Links?!
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See, square dancing I always liked. I'm much better at dances with steps.
Hee--we had square dancing lessons in 5th-grade PE, and boy, were they excruciating!
I can't do any hand-eye coordination stuff well, due to the Mixed Dominance, but I can roller and ice skate and swim and bike and jump rope. Never been much at cartwheels, but was great on the balance beam and the uneven parallel bars. I also did well at ballet and other dance forms.
I LOVE to sing and can do it badly. I am going to try to learn to play the ukelele this year. It's much easier than the guitar and then I could play with the BF.
Dancing - I hae no idea what I llok like - I just care what it feels like. And actual steps, well just like anything else it takes forever. I took ballet and modern dance in college. Most of the time I looked like a bear. I didn't really care, and I would take ballet again because tiny movements= big work. It felt good.
I've taught adults to swim. A big chunk of it is getting them comfortable in the water, if they've gone that long without learning they just don't enjoy the water the way a swimmer does. They're uncomfortable and uncertain and fun is way the hell out of the questions.
I know I've been able to swim since shortly after I was able to walk, so I have little perspective. But I can't imagine how ducking your face into the water is affected by your buoyancy. It seems weird.
Because if you feel like you're going to sink like a stone and die as soon as you move its pretty scary. And if you're tense you'll never float at all (particularly if you are dense) and you WILL sink like a stone as soon as you let go of the edge.
And a lot of people are freaked out by submerging their faces. I used to spend more time than you'd think with kids sitting on the stairs rubbing water on our faces before they'd even just put the tips of their lips in to blow bubbles.
I loved to swim when I was younger but I would never swim in deep water. This is partly because of fear and partly because my legs just aren't strong enough to make me a really good swimmer.
I taught an adult with a disability to swim once. We would experiment with what was comfortable or strong for HER and then proceed from there with modified strokes.
I always loved the water. I did water baby before I could walk and couldn't be kept out of the breakers once I could toddle. When I started formal swim lessons someone told me "if you can swim in six feet of water you can swim in six HUNDRED feet of water" and it blew. my. mind.
It was the only place where I was graceful (skatin? skipping rope? those others? HAH! not likely) and to this day its hard to get me out. A few summers ago at the shore a teenage cousin and I were in rough breakers for seven hours straight before his mom all but dragged us out to go home.
we had square dancing lessons in 5th-grade PE
We had square dancing, for some reason, in my freshman year of high school. The PE teacher had a record player, and apparently one record, so we square-danced to early Michael Jackson.
Don't stop 'till you get enough
It took me a long time to learn how to ride a bike. I can roller skate forwards, I can swim (I took lessons in a pool, and did some swimming at the beach, but the beach is rather shallow and there aren't currents -- I've heard it refered to as the kiddie pool of beaches). I can't do a cartwheel and I never learned how to dive off a diving board (to freaked out I'd hit my head and die).
As a little girl I took ballet lessons and did well, my teacher always remarked on my grace and how quickly I picked things up, which amused Mom because I'm such a klutz. In middle school I played the clarinet for 2 years and in elementary school did take piano lessons.
As an adult I've taken ball room dance lessons. I know how to tango, foxtrot, hustle, merenege, swing (single and triple time), rumba, waltz, cha cha, and I think there is something I'm forgetting. I had a hard time learning swing, partly because teh instrution for triple time swing sucked, but also because I kept trying to do hustle time. I can sort of salsa if I have a strong lead. I'm in no way an expert, but I know enough to fake certain things.
I cannot line dance to save my life, that includes the Electric Slide.
I can't sing either, even Mom doesn't want to hear me sing, but I sing all the time in the car or at home and sometimes even make up stupid little songs.
I can also crochet. I have terrible hand eye coordination and had to drop out of tennis lessons because I could never actually hit the ball.
See, square dancing I always liked. I'm much better at dances with steps.
Yeah, me too. I have rhythm, I'm just not that graceful.
I do fear sharks, though, which is my main reason for not wanting to swim where the ocean is deep. This may be irrational. However, as I haven't been near swimmable ocean since 1992, I'm okay with it.
Irrational as it is, this is totally me. I don't do to any depths in any ocean and I'm even slightly wary of deeper pools.
I prefer to see the bottom of whatever body I'm swimming in.