The Right Stuff

I was the only guy in the pop diva class. Fuck. Ok well, there were like two other thirty-year-olds/middle-aged men, and then there was the instructor, who had clearly had his fair share of dicks. The rest of the room was crowded with vaginas, and I might as well have had one too.

As the name of the class suggested, the choreo that the instructor taught was sassy, with some bitchassness and lots of ‘tude. (That’s short for “attitude.”), and of course the song was Britney Spears’s Womanizer. I picked the choreo up pretty quickly and found myself rolling my eyes a lot, so I constantly reminded myself why I was here taking beginners’ classes at the arc.

I know the choreo, and I think I look pretty fucking fierce in the mirror, but I probably actually suck and look hella awkward. The blonde cheerleader with the chicken wings next to me is probably killing it better than I am.

After the class, I recorded myself doing the choreo and watched it, and just as I had thought, I failed at swinging my ass, flipping my hair, shimmying my boobs, and doing a bunch of other things. I looked like an awkwardly tall person in an awkward body.

I sat alone in the corner of the dance studio, going through past videos of myself on my iPod and critiquing and criticizing myself. My boyfriend doesn’t like it when I bring myself down, but I have to be hard on myself because everyone else is afraid to do it for me.



I was on a dance team from November to February. It was a pretty small one that was just starting up, and it took anyone who wanted to dance, whether they had very little experience or a lot of experience. Similar to how CADC branched off of the Chinese Association club, this one branched off of...the Informatics Student Association club (INSA) (Computer club basically). The coordinator of the dance team needed a club to sponsor us, and INSA was willing too.

According to the INSA website on our new dance team, “One of the things INSA sought to strive for at the end of last year was to show that ICS students were not nerds and had other talents.” Ironically, none of the dancers recruited were or currently are in INSA. But we had a sponsor, so all was good.

After much struggle trying to decide the name of our dance team, we simply became INSA Dance, though in the minds of many, we were the Insane Nigga Swag Alliance.

I have to admit, at some points I had trouble considering INSA a real/serious dance team. But we did have a photoshoot; that was pretty legit. (That’s where the sexy photo on the left came from.) Other than the photoshoot, I would just skip practice like it was whatever, or I’d show up late (though I had pretty good reasons to be late, reasons that will be elaborated on eventually, but not too soon because they involve TMI). It got to the point where I stopped showing up and then quit.

One of the main reasons I quit was I eventually realized that I could grow a lot faster outside of INSA because INSA wasn’t giving me the kind of training I needed. After watching a video of myself at Kaba Modern auditions in February, I realized I needed something far more than just cleaning. I really had to go back to basics, something that I neglected when I had first started dancing because I was too impatient and eager to start taking intermediate/advanced classes.

I figured that I’d be doing this training with myself and my iPod camera. For the past year, I’ve trained with my friends, who have all been very helpful and important to my dancing, but too often I’d get “You’re too stiff,” “You’re too loose; you need more control,” or “‘Feel’ the music.” Seriously, sometimes people even used “too stiff” and “too loose” in the same sentence when they generalized my dancing problems. My iPod camera proved to be a lot less vague and a lot more patient when it came to analyzing the problems of each and every move.

My last day at INSA was Sunday, February 7th. It was fun, but it wasn’t what I needed yet.



Wow, I don’t keep my head still. Seriously, it’s all over the fucking place when I dance. I have no neck control. How did it take me so long to notice this?

I got up form the corner and recorded myself going through the Womanizer piece again, this time keeping my head still so that it didn’t dangle off of my neck like a bobblehead. I looked half as awkward on camera as before. Aw shiiet, I’m getting somewhere.