Dancing Queen

I'm not much of a dancer. I  never dreamed of being a ballerina or tap dancer. Never asked for lessons at all.

One day, in grade four, my class went to gym class expecting another boring day of volleyball or other such exercises. Surprise, surprise. We were having a dance lesson for the next few classes.

Folk dancing. We had to practice our routine of the Hora, which I think is a Jewish dance and then there was the Dance Of The Seven Veils. The Hora went well and I found that I actually enjoyed dancing. I loved going around in a circle holding hands with all the other girls and kicking out our legs.

The Dance Of The Seven Veils was a bit of a challenge emotionally. The boys gym class got a hold of what we were doing, which was taking off seven veils one by one. I'm assuming that this is a middle eastern dance and it's incredibly sexy done by an adult.

It was traumatizing to have rows of boys cheering whenever we took a veil, really a scarf, out of our sweaty gym shorts. We protested. But back then it was boys will be boys and they got to stay and torment us. We adjusted after the teacher told us to ignore them.

It was all so silly. To think it threatening to have boy looking at us in our gym clothes. But I guess kids can be silly so it's okay.

Back to the point, if they had kept dancing classes in the physical education system, I might have learned how to dance. But these two dances were the end of teaching us 'culture'. I suppose I have a bunch of obstreperous boys to thank for my two left feet. I'm glad I enjoy walking.