Slow slow, quick quick, slow slow, quick quick - dancing the basic steps of the Jive. We all tried desperately to match the steps with our respective partners at the dance class on Sunday afternoon. This was the second session and on arrival we were told to practice the basic step that we had learned in the first session. She obviously knew that none of us would have bothered to practice them at home, as she had suggested!

Our dance instructor is a petite lady with short hair: Ms Farida Rangoonwalla. I liked her immediately and I think I will enjoy learning dance from her as she is so sweet and cheerful. Like I said, she immediately put us to practice the basic steps of the Jive (not Waltz, like I had mistakenly mentioned in my earlier byte) that she had made us familiar with in the first session.

Okay, so here we were trying hard to go slow slow, quick quick with our respective partners, trying to get some rhythm and match up to the beats of a song (footloose) that had too fast a music. We hardly got into the rhythm of this step that she introduced the next two steps, doing two swirls and then changing hands.

Slow slow, quick quick: One two three four, slow slow quick quick: swirl one, swirl back, turn and change hands and swirl again. We tried practicing these steps as gracefully as we could. Although, "gracefully" would be a very wrong word to use here. Incidentally, all the men there are from the military background and hard as they tried they just couldn't get out of the "marching" habit. It looked more like "Parade" practice where you could hear all the feet going "tap, tap, tap" to the above rhythm, but nowhere were they matching up to the music beats of "footloose". My husband, who is my partner, was busy hopping up and down like a rabbit on his feet and I was finding it very difficult to look "graceful" with my own steps which did not seem to sync with his at all. I had to keep looking down at our feet to see if we were getting the steps right. Then he got so involved in trying to keep the basic steps (slow slow, quick quick) going that he would forget that he was supposed to twirl me and change hands somewhere in the middle.

There seemed to be just one air conditioner working in the room and so it soon got quite hot and we were all sweating after about ten minutes into the session. My feet and calf muscles began to show their displeasure at having to do so much exercise all of a sudden. I soon had severe muscle cramps in my legs and just about managed to last the full one hour after which I just collapsed.

Since I suffer from a, recently discovered, hypothyroid condition, I tend to get muscle cramps very quickly. In addition to that I am also suffering from a skin condition that gets aggravated with heat and sweat. So, my doctor had advised me to take it "slow slow" and NOT "quick quick" and here I was, going "slow slow, quick quick!" The doctor had also advised me to keep myself cool, but a single AC in the room assisted by vigorous shaking of my limbs and torso was making me hot enough.

Well, I lasted the full session and that was a big achievement for me. A little rest in the afternoon, post lunch and I was back on my feet. And I really felt good. Am looking forward eagerly to the next sessions.

In the meantime...I gotta practice: Slow slow, quick quick: One two three four, slow slow quick quick: swirl one, swirl back, turn and change hands and swirl again.....!

Are you with me?

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