Hip-Hop, I went ker-plop!

When I was growing up in India, I associated the word hip-hop with what you did while playing hopscotch. It has a different meaning for me now.

Drum roll please…I joined a hip-hop class. You can stop laughing. Of course, at no time in the future will you see me breaking or popping - not talking bones and arteries here. Although... Right now, I can barely make it through fifteen minutes of class, without holding my sides and gasping for breath.

You can laugh now.

When I first entered the room, I did a quick check. Anyone older than me? Check. Anyone more square than me? Didn’t think it was possible, but check. This is the Rec Center, after all, not South Central LA.

I had my own rules.
Rule number one: Don’t take your eyes of Holly, the instructor.
Rule number two: Don’t look in the mirror – which I shouldn’t have to expound, if I was following Rule Number One.

It was tempting, however, to glance quickly at the mirror – narcissism vs rank idiocy. I choke back a laugh. Look at that clumsy old fool wearing the Walk for Hope shirt … oh. Never mind.

I hang back at rear of the room, near the door that says EXIT (just in case). Pretend to warm up, to look as if I have been doing this all my life. I stop after the first stretch, in case I pull a hamstring. Holly walks over to her boom-box and the music starts with the bass on crunk and at a decibel level that cause the death of what is left of my hearing tissue. It is Busta Rhymes who is busting out a tune that is about to bust my butt (and my back).




She starts us off with Step Ten (umm…do we know how to count?) and into a routine they had been practicing for five weeks. Isn’t that a bit unfair, I whine to myself, this apparently being a Beginner’s Class. But I am given no time to think. She is off running…or hip-hopping. When she hipped, I hopped. She jumped to the left, I to the right. She shimmied, I shook…and so on. Little Miss Holly had her own lingo going on, the one that she wasn’t going to let me in on, the one she probably used when she was kickin it in the hood with her homies, talking smack and spraying graffiti on walls.

It was Stomp and Strike, Motorcycle and Zorro, and Attitude and Flight Attendant (all I know is that next time I fly and the lady starts showing us the location of the exits, I can jump up with: Allow me, please!). I kept waiting for Rest and Relax and Stop and Breathe. But no, not goin’ to happen. Sadly, that wasn’t part of her routine.

After five minutes, she stopped to tell us that we just lost 1000 calories. With all that hip-hopping and head-twirling, I think I lost some brain cells. You better believe that at my age, I am clinging with brutish ferocity to whatever I have left. In any case, there is no way I can move my head and my arms and my feet…at the same time. Choose, Holly honey, it’s one or the other. Coordination may be your thing (like those oversized pants and wifebeaters), it sure ain’t mine.

OMG…I am starting to use ain’t and gon’. Next thin y’know is dat ah’ll be playin’ dice games with da brothers, slangin’ crack rock on da corna and before you know it…I make it rain on dem hos!

At the end of the session, I stoop sllllowly to pick my car keys off the floor, vowing to put them somewhere high next class.

Next class? you ask incredulously. Surely, you can’t be going again!

I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment. Every Monday, I will grab a towel, my Kleen Kanteen water bottle and head for the Rec Center with the same enthusiasm Jack Nicholson heads for a Lakers game.