Heel, Toe, Coaster Step

My Grandma and Grampa have an RV that they leave out here in California, and when they came out to visit, they’d stay for a two month stretch. It was always in March and April, and it always coincided with the Wilderness Line Dance Rally. It’s been a favorite event of my Grandma’s for years, and I’ve always wanted to go, but had to work. This is the first year she’s been able to come out since Grampa died, and since I’m still not working, I was able to go with her.

It’s held at the Wilderness Lakes RV Park, and consists of mostly retirees as the coordinators and participants. I was the youngest there by at least 20 years.  It was 4 days of instruction and practice, combined with some social hours, and potluck dinners. They taught 2 or 3 dances every hour from 9 to noon, and then another 2 dances from 2-3. A group review was held from 3-5 to go over all the dances taught that day.

Let me tell you, those little old men and ladies kicked my young ass.

I was so exhausted by lunch on Monday that I had to take a cat nap before hitting the afternoon class. When I got home after the review (the RV park is about 40 minutes from me, so I commuted instead of staying with my Grandma), I passed out and took a three hour nap. And that was just the first day.

I managed to get through the next 3 days without napping, but not without pain. My calves and thighs and feet were screaming every day. I thought that I’d be able to handle it. I mean it’s line dancing, right? How hard can it be? Well, friends, it’s hard when you’re doing nothing but dancing for 6 hours a day, and are much more accustomed to a 30 minute treadmill stint, followed by 8 hours on the couch.

Despite all of the pain, I had an absolute blast all week. It was great spending time with my Grandma, and everyone there was incredibly nice and friendly. By Tuesday I’d met at LEAST 15 people who wanted me to come to classes with them, or who wanted me to talk to someone or another about finding a class in my area. I went into the week knowing 2 very basic line dances, and nothing else. People kept asking me how long I’d been dancing, or what classes I was taking, and were stunned when I said I didn’t dance. I just have a knack for it, I guess, since I picked up a lot of the harder dances without much trouble. (This amuses me greatly, as I’m known for tripping over my own feet while walking on a flat surface, and yet I had no problem doing complicated steps and turns.)

The best part, I think, was that it wasn’t just “Country” line dancing. We learned dances to songs by Elvis, Jason Mraz, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Manhattan Transfer, The Beatles, Andrea Boccelli, as well as a couple songs in Dutch and Spanish, and a slow version of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” (performed by Mike Zito). The variety was great, and the teachers were phenomenal. If you had trouble on a particular move, they’d go over and over it until you got it. If you cornered them in the restroom with a question on a particular dance and where you were getting something wrong (which I may or may not have done), they were happy to help you right then and there. Even the other participants were awesome. I’d never taken a formal line dancing class before, so I had no idea what they meant when they said a “coaster step” or a “rocking chair” and now I can do those moves in my sleep, thanks to the people around me giving me a little extra help.

Since I still have a lot of free time to kill, I’m going to start taking line dance classes during the day. It’s great exercise, and while I might be the youngest by far, it’s still a ton of fun. And next year at the rally I won’t be the new girl who doesn’t know her shuffle steps from her step locks. I’ll just be one of the crowd.