Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Patience, Grasshopper
It's raining out here in the country, as it has been for a few days. I'm also wearing a sweatshirt, at noon. This brings up the issue that summer is coming to an end. I'm cold in the mornings and I'm slowly running out of the strawberry daquiri scented lotion and body spray that I bought back in June. Perhaps that's for the best. In a few weeks that smell will be woefully out of season, like a candy cane in the middle of July. In its place, I have some L'Occitane honey-scented stuff.
Funny story: On Friday afternoon I went to a tap class that was supposed to be easy -- at least that's how it was listed on the schedule. I got there and the teacher was 15 minutes late, which is strange for this particular studio which prides itself on professionalism.
The class started as most tap classes do, with assorted warm ups involving shuffles and flaps and ball changes. I was looking for a mellow but good work out, as I had had the day before. I just like to keep my skills sharp. All of a sudden the class started speeding up, defintely not at the level that it should have been at and not at a level that I was comfortable. I started to get mad at the teacher, who was kind of paying more attention to one advanced student than the rest of us.
I got confused. This woman was a phenomenal dancer, and a rhythm tapper at that. Any day of the week I would pay money to watch her perform. At the moment, though, I was paying money to learn from her, and all I felt was frustration because she was on her own planet, tapping as if no one else was in the room. I left at the end of class very frustrated and vowed never to take her class again.
Yesterday I was flipping around the homepage of another studio when I saw a bio of this teacher. I clicked on it and almost fell out of my chair. Not only did this woman have one of the most amazing tap resumes I had ever seen, but she used to be a dancer for Cab Calloway and toured with the Hi Di Ho Orchestra. I felt so ashamed. Who was I to get frustrated over a class that was being taught by one of Cab's best? If I stopped being such a brat for five minutes, I might actually learn something from this woman.
I'm going back later this week.