Reminiscing--Singing and Dancing in my Past

Edited to add: If you’re wondering how this blog entry relates to fitness--I was pondering my clumsiness because of the recent ankle injury (from falling off my step) that has sidelined me lately.

This is a pic of my high school show choir performing. I’m the chick of the middle couple.

I was thinking today about whether or not I’m a klutz. My husband will tell you unequivocally that yes, Lainie is indeed a total klutz, but the story is not that black and white.

You can see me performing in the photo above (though it’s hard to tell that’s moi) and it’s true I was in a show choir in high school. We did many performances which involved singing and dancing, and sometimes even cartwheels across the stage--and yes, I was one of the girls who did the cartwheels in dancing shoes and a dress (we did wear bloomers underneath, by the way). So that would indicate I was not a complete klutz. However, I was not one of the girls who did lifts (or was lifted, to be more exact). I was supposed to be one of the girls lifted in the performance shown in the photo, but I couldn’t get it right, so I got the lame leaning-away-from-my-partner move, instead. His name was Miles (or Myles? I don’t remember), in case you’re curious. If you’re familiar with the film Dirty Dancing (and if you’re a woman around my age--you know it well), then just imagine the difficulty Baby had trying to get the lift right. Only in my case I didn’t have Patrick Swayze or a beautiful lake to practice lifting. I had geeky high school choir boys, a shrill music teacher, and an ugly choir room with a hard floor. I just couldn’t trust those boys enough to let them lift me (not even the one sort of cute one).

OK, I don’t want to go too far off the subject. The point is that I could cartwheel and dance (when taught the choreography) but not do lifts. The tricky part was I had to sing properly while dancing. I think I pulled that off fine but the teacher was always disappointed that I didn’t smile big enough. I hated the way we were supposed to have those big goofy smiles. Plus I have always been shy (not sure what possessed me to sing on stages) so the few times I did a solo, it was hard not to do it with a shaky voice. That’s irrelevant to whether I am clumsy or not, though. Still, here’s a photo of me singing shakily:



Check out those hideous 1991 jeans we were all wearing. Yikes.

So I was definitely able to adequately perform on stage in high school (except for the smiling and lifting) but it probably does not prove I am not a klutz...especially once I admit how often I fell down walking through corridors or down stairs in the school. I’ve written so much already just about choir that I think I’ll save my other examples of whether or not I’m clumsy for another day. Stay tuned.