Dance Class Challenge: 76/100 - Hip Hop 1 of 4

Hip hop challenges me, and I've been served before.  I want to be able to hold my own for half a round of getting served, so I enrolled in a four-week hip hop class.  Tonight was the first night.

The hip hop class I took last year ("sexy" hip hop) gave me an idea of what to expect from a hip hop class: a good sweat, a dorky feeling, and some new moves that don't really have names.  I definitely got that from tonight's class.  I was dorking it up, front and center, in my pigtails and lime green track pants.  I got sweaty, laughed through class, and learned some stuff (even if my gangsta fists look like ballerina hands).

This is the first hip hop series at this studio, and I think they're still trying to find the best format for the class.  I don't want to be unfair in my review of the class.  That being said, the class was listed as beginner friendly.  I was challenged but picked up the choreography okay; I've taken hundreds of hours of dance classes so I can pick up a minute or so of choreography with a low percentage of dropped steps.  I'm not new to dance classes and I was in the front of the class.  Other students were more challenged than me, and I could see some frustration among my classmates from my position near the mirror.  Our teacher, enthusiastic and skilled, wasn't teaching us in 4- or 8-count sections.  He'd count a little then give wordless, onomatopoetic cues.  It was hard to know when to start and stop, to know how long each move should take, and to land from a turn or a step at the correct time.  I started playing follow-the-leader because my music counting skills weren't helping me.  As much fun as I had, I know my husband wouldn't return to finish the series after the first class because he would be frustrated.  Good thing I didn't talk him into taking this one with me.

For a beginner class, we tackled too much material for the first night.  I look forward to next week's class to see how it evolves after the first class.  I was expecting basic steps and choreography to put those steps to use, but I'm down for learning chunks of choreography.  I hope my fellow students return and have some degree of success in the series.  If there were definite counts, I would've nailed the choreography.  I didn't do too bad tonight, but I'm hoping none of us gets served before next Tuesday night.