The impossible dream

I don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the tap-dancing physiotherapist and his elderly patient, but it’s rather lovely. The young man, who is helping his patient recover from a hip operation, learned that she had always been a dancer and decided to incorporate tap dancing into her rehabilitation. She has taught him a dance routine, which they do together and is a joy to watch. I have always longed to master step ball change, probably because I have no idea what that is. It just sounds so impressive, so song-and-dance, so Sammy Davis Jr.

Really I should know better. I have no sense of rhythm whatsoever, but insist on launching myself into activities that only emphasise this weakness. For some reason I decided to take ballroom dancing classes when I was a teenager and my poor partner had to count throughout each dance because I never knew what I should be doing when. Or when I should be doing what.

Having learned nothing from this experience, I decided that it would be a pity to live so close to the River Thames and not give rowing a try. Rowing is so weird – the seat moves backwards and forwards, but your feet stay rooted to the spot, anchored inside giant shoes attached to the boat. I couldn’t stop thinking about how unhygienic it was to have communal shoes, and I blame this for my complete inability to control the oars, resulting in a lot of unwelcome splashing and dangerous swaying. I have since left those communal shoes to other people and I think everyone is happier for it.

^{Gloriana, the Queen’s Rowbarge. Exemplary oar wielding.}

I’m not sure that I even want to talk about my foray into piano playing – it’s still so raw. I dreamt of playing Chopin sonatas, jazz piano like Oscar Peterson or even Christmas carols so that the family could gather round and sing together the way people did in Victorian times. Reality should have dawned right then, but no, I persevered and even went in for a couple of exams. Grade 1 was okay because the expectations were really quite low, but when I went for my Grade 2 exam (more terrified than at any other moment in my life), the examiner didn’t quite say, “Perhaps you should seek out other hobbies,” but his look said it all. The piano has now been re-purposed into shelves. Not that I’m vindictive.

I’m not alone in being rhythmically challenged. I have a very talented and capable friend who could not resist the lure of step ball change and took up tap dancing. Joyce worked incredibly hard on her routine and even had a plank of wood in the kitchen so that she could practice without causing lasting damage to the floor. Once she felt sufficiently confident, she invited her husband to watch a full performance in the kitchen, complete with music. When she (perhaps unwisely) asked for his opinion, Geoff said, “That was really good, but was it supposed to be in time to the music?” Joyce hung up her tap shoes after that.

They say you live and learn, but some of us do a lot more living than learning. We just keep following the same hopeless fantasies with the same predictable results. In fact, I am looking up “step ball change” on YouTube right now and I’m fairly sure I could master it in half an hour. Forty-five minutes tops. As long as I don’t do it to music and don’t invite Geoff to watch, I think I’ll be fine.