Why I will never be a Dancer

I may have mentioned before that I have delusions when it comes to my dance making ability. When I'm out and I've had enough booze to loosen myself up on the dance floor I can at times turn in to a dance megalomaniac. My natural freestyler takes over and suddenly I enter into some serious dance-offs where I aim to make the competition feel like a soiled wig with my break-dance, pop 'n' lock and grindability. All self taught of course. In fairness, for most of these drink induced dance fight clubs, I vaguely recall being declared victorious but that said I am not sure if this is anything to go by. My judges are usually some drunken Irish rabble who's idea of a champion is usually the person who inhibits the ability to make the biggest tit of themselves, something that I know I am highly capable of as I literally have no shame when it comes to the dance floor. This might be something I need to tone down for my new Swiss life.

Anyways after many years of convincing myself I was the next John Travolta I decided to put my money where my mouth was and partook in a dance workshop with my ex flatmate Mimi that was being was being put on by non other than Jennifer Lopez herself (in reality she is actually another Jennifer Lopez also from New York and not THE Jennifer Lopez, but I must say she was prettier than the real JLO in my opinion). Husband was supposed to accompany us to this spectacle but had come down with a serious case of severe hangoveritis. There was a bit of an outbreak going around at the time considering it was Christmas party season.

Jenny from the Block was teaching a workshop based on the music video for Lady GaGa's 'Bad Romance'. If I'm being honest I would've preferred Beyoncé's 'Singles Ladies' but what are you gonna do.

The warm up was intense, I felt every muscle in my body expanding and contracting. The positions she was contorting her body into were not coming naturally to me I had to admit. I had been on the fitness buzz for a while but I've always had rather big legs and they were not designed in a way that the splits could be done without an intense amount of effort on my part.

I looked at Mimi and could see she was feeling it too and we began to giggle. Jenny began by individually teaching us each of the different moves in sequence to bring it all together once we'd 'locked them down'. There was the 'Thriller hand gesture rip off' move, the 'weird mini shuffle with complex Macarena' move, the 'fake pregnancy' move, the 'how could you' move.

It was really good clean fun I must say, refreshing to finally let sobriety and my love of dance finally mix. That said I could not shake the feeling that the moves were not coming as organically as I lead myself to believe they would.

Jenny: '1, 2, 3, 4, Left, 5, 6, 7, 8 Right'

I fared even worse when we had to bring all movements together in sequence to the music. The only other guy in the group (who was straight by the way, dragged along by his girlfriend) was an absolutely fabulous natural. I instantly hated him. What was I doing wrong?

Jenny: 'Step 1, 2 Right, 3, 4 Left, Right Right'

I was slow, stumbling over my feet, frequently turning the wrong direction. Balls!

Jenny: 'Stretch to Right and pivot back to your Left'

Left, left, left; it echoes in my brain and just then it dawns on me. I CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEFT AND RIGHT!

Suddenly I flashback to my childhood, I'm four years old in primary school drawing pictures in the classroom with a peer.

GBM: 'I drewed a house, I made it green cuz I like the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles'

Peer: 'That's nice, I drew my Daddy, I need the blue crayon on your left can you pass it to me?'

I stare back at her blankly

Peer: 'Your left, your left'

I look to my right.

Peer: 'Do you not know which way is left or which way is right?'

GBM: 'Now that you mention it'

She points to the hand I am drawing with.

Peer: 'That's your left hand see, and the other is your right. I guess if your not sure you can go by the fact that your hand with the wart on it is your left hand'

I had at the time a tiny wart (ewww) on the stretch of skin between my thumb and index finger on my left hand and from this moment onwards a directionally dependency was entrusted solely to this little fella. If I was ever ensure which direction was left or right I would just rub my index finger of my left hand on warty and he would tell me the correct way to go. It was the most perfect symbiotic relationship, I evolved to a child who could understand directions and the wart was allowed to continue to exist for it had a purpose in life. Even though the wart has since moved on to the wart graveyard, I still to this day rub my index finger of my left hand on that stretch of skin when my wart used to be whenever I'm unsure of my directions.

I guess you are all now thinking I'm completely mental at this stage but what I mean by saying 'I can't tell the difference between left and right' is that it was never inherently obvious to me from the off. I mean I can tell the difference now but I think it takes me a couple of milliseconds longer than most. God this is actually so embarrassing.

I returned to Husband later that day smelling of failure but luckily it was overpowered by his stench of booze. I explained the situation. His solution?

At this point I began to both laugh and cry at my sorry state of existence.

GBM