Practice Makes Perfect

So it is week 7 of being a member of the Folk Dance Team, we have finished learning a German dance, and started 3 others... with one more left to start learning.

It is so much fun and I love it, all except for the clogging part. Well, to be more specific the "me being bad at clogging" part. Sometimes I amaze myself at how bad I actually am. I find my feet just flailing around and my brain going a million miles an hour. To make matters even worse it seems like clogging is as natural as walking to everyone else, and for me it's as natural as dancing on my head. Our clogging dance is in couples and at one point the girls show off doing this really hard clogging sequence as our partner watches us in awe. Well my partner was in awe alright. About 4 out of 5 times when it gets to that part my body just freezes with the mere thought of flailing around so uncoordinatedly. So I am trying to do the sequence and watching other people, but I don't even know how to begin moving my body so I end up standing there in a trance. I glanced back at my partner and he just gives me this look of, "You know YOU are supposed to be dancing right now right?" Then the other 1 out of 5 times I end up moving around in a similar motion that a chicken might move around in if one of it's wings got chopped in half. This merits a completely different look from my partner, which is one of, "What in the earth was THAT?" Then the next part of the dance requires me to walk in front of him strutting all superior-like, well I feel pretty dumb strutting- especially after my crazy chicken dance. (Speaking of my chicken dance skills I won a chicken dance contest a few weeks ago- no joke. Woot! Woot! That explains it all I guess.) So I am hoping my clogging will improve soon.

We also do a dance from the Philippines where we dance in and out of large poles as people are banging them together on the floor. We have been learning the dance without the poles and just dancing with lines on the ground. Last week the girls decided to get out the poles to try it because we were still waiting for the boys to learn their part. I was one of the first ones to hold the poles and kneel and bang them together. You have to bang them together and stay on beat because if you don't you end up tripping all of the girls dancing because there are 4 people on each pole. So when people don't move their feet in time... They get slammed in the poles. It's a hard knock life, what can I say? Then it was my turn to try my hand (or foot) at dancing in the poles. I wasn't too worried and didn't think that it would be too much different from dancing on the lines. Boy was I wrong... The poles being slammed together are like chomping shark jaws, each time they close just waiting to take off one of my baby toes. (did I mention this dance is done barefoot?) So i finally work up my courage to jump into the poles and as I mean for my foot to go in, I chicken out and I jump over the poles completely. I am thinking in my head, "What a Whanny! Just do it they are only poles!" So I shake it off and come back to try another round of Foot Chomper. I finally successfully danced while the poles were slamming together beneath my feet. The dance I did, however, included only the steps and none of the arm movements we are supposed to do and me staring at the poles the whole time with a few squeals now and then- not my finest hour. Knowing my tendency to be accident prone... It'll be a miracle if I make it to our final performance with both of my feet. But I guess, at least if I lose one of my feet I won't have to humiliate myself in front of thousands with my chicken clog.