Don’t Make Me Do That Zombie Dance on your Face!!

Thriller was the first album I remember we had when I was a kid.  We wore the thing out.  And the video on MTV (a banned channel at my house that we sneakily caught glimpses of occasionally) was pretty much the coolest thing out there along with MacGyver.  I was genuinely sad when the MJ died.  That feeling surprised me.  Well about a week ago the Mrs HTF came home from the YMCA with a flyer for a class where they would teach us all the Thriller Dance!  There was zero hesitation – the Popes were in.  So on Friday night we walked into the small gym at the Y and learned just how difficult it is to be a dancing zombie.  (for a more informative account of the night check out Traci’s blog)

There were a lot of people, and I took some solace in that.  And they were all different shapes, sizes, ages and nationalities.  Except that about halfway through the class I made the realization that one demographic was dangerously under-represented – THE ADULT MALES.  As I looked around I suddenly realized that I was the only torch-bearer for the not-so-coordinated “guys over 18” crowd.  I’ve been in this situation before at the YMCA, but never in a dance class.  In spite of that I wasn’t about to quit – we hadn’t even gotten to the part where we struck the were-wolf poses yet.  And we all know how important that is.

We practice for an hour an half for the 3 minute dance – super efficient I’m sure.  I was reminded of high school a bit.  Back then I could play full court basketball for 3-4 hours at a time with no problem, but we did dance rehearsals (for the musicals) for 20 minutes and I could barely move the next day.  Those just aren’t muscles we use that often I guess.  And in Seattle style I was wearing HIKING SHOES, which turned out to be a pretty terrible idea – meaning that I got to feel the fun on my feet the next day.  The kids all started out doing it, but quickly bailed on us.  Braeden stuck it out though.  Still, we learned our little routine and later that night Traci and I reenacted the whole dance back at our house.  (If that image troubles you that’s perfectly reasonable.)