HIP- HOP skip and jump

Play the PLEAY:
I slipped into my favorite three-quarter harem pants: they were black, elastic, tight at the hips and looser near the knees. I teamed them with a short red top and a black sports-bra that encircled my neck. I looked into the mirror and gave a tiny smile of satisfaction. Hip-Hop was going to be fun today.
As I walked into my hip-hop dance class, I felt the air escape my lungs. The beats and the booty, the grooves and the gyrations, the popping and the palpitations, the sweat, the spirit and the sensuousness, the libido and the liveliness, the passion and the pressure- ooh, it was too much to take- I’m ‘THE DANCER’!

‘It was too much to take’ – does it convey passion and heat?
In reality, it was really ‘too much to take’ because-I Floundered, Fidgeted, Flailed, Fumbled, Fell Flat, Flipped all wrong- in short I was THE ‘Fucked-up’ DANCER.
But, hell- it was way too much Fun. I loved dancing, just like my bosom buds- Pretzel and Rubel. And we loved Hip-hop, or whatever WE made of Hip-Hop.

We joined Hip-hop because we loved popping, hand-stands and head-stands.
Actually, that’s a lie- we joined because that was the only week-end class available with decent timings.

I was a little late for class. I waved a big hello to Pretzel and Rubel, and joined them for the initial stretching.

‘PLEAY,’ Balaji said. I raised my foot on to the side bar, stretched forward a few times and then pleayed.

If you are wondering what the hell ‘a pleay’ is, there is no need to panic. Even we, the AIADMK (All-in-All Dubuku Mokkai Kroopu) gang of girls found it very funny when Balaji, our dance instructor had first spelt it out loud.

BEND- THE END.

‘So, what’s a pleay?’ we had initially wondered.

Balaji had come to our rescue, ‘With one leg, stretched onto the side, on the side bar, your arms holding the bar for support, and your back straight, BEND the other leg such that that thigh is parallel to the ground.’

/>‘Acrobatic,’ said Pretzel.
‘Painful’, I silently cursed.
‘At least you guys can think of playing with Pleay. My leg does not even reach the bar. Yikes!’ Pretzel and me found the painful pleay heavenly, as our inner sides cracked up at the funny situation Rubel was in. Rubel was a little on the shorter side, you see. Getting her leg on the bar was like a little kid reaching out for the jar of colorful candies on a way over-the-sky shelf.
‘Put your leg on the lower bar Rubel,’ Pretzel managed to say with a straight face. A pissed-off Rubel got her leg onto the lower bar. She had to be satisfied with the local, colorful gems on the reachable, lower shelf. She was darn cute to watch and be cuter to watch her expressions would when she reads this blog. ;)

STRETCH- THE WRETCHED RETCH

However, Pretzel’s and my joy was short-lived. Now, it was time to stretch before the dance session. Balaji came right behind a few other co-dancers, and STRETCHED their one leg on the bar as far as possible- the space between the two legs were forced apart as wide as a stout Iyer Maami’s (South Indian Brahmin Aunty) hips.
(Disclaimer: No harm intended to any region, caste, sex, size)

‘AaOOOooooooooch,’ I screamed.

No, it wasn’t because of the pain I was undergoing. The scream was in response to one of our dance-mates squirming in pain as Balaji went down on her. (Pun unintended- I meant, Balaji getting her to stretch her leg to the maximum possible extent on the side bar)

This was like gang rape- Balaji was stretching each of our one-leg-on-the-bar beyond imagination. Rubel went through it next.
When it was my turn, and Balaji ‘went down on me’, I willed funny thoughts into my head, in order to forget the terrible pain:
“1.One leg up, and the other down- I must look like a dog waiting to piss.
2.If he stretches my legs any farther apart, this may be the pink-ribbon day I lose my virginity.
3. What if he stretches me to an extent I can’t take, and I fart in his face. Yuck! But yeah, that’d keep him away from stretching me EVER again.”

When it was over, I looked at Pretzel with a sadistic smile. I thought, ‘Your chance Bebo.’
But, Pretzel, as always, was the clever B!#@*. She was last in line, and stretched on her own, even before Balaji could do the honors.
‘I have a back problem, so I did the maximum I could on my own.’ (whiney face)

Did I say it before? B!#@*

WARM-UP TO ME BABY..

I never really knew that she could dance like this.She makes a man wants to speak SpanishComo se llama (si), bonita (si), mi casa (si, Shakira Shakira), su casaShakira, Shakira…

Balaji, our flexible instructor now moved on to warm up, with this sexy Shakira number as the warm-up song. This was a nice feeling- moving around like butterflies with light wings. This was relaxing.

Relaxingggggg…
Until…
‘Now stay on your toes, bend down and do Push-ups’
‘Do girls do Push-ups, ever? I thought they only wore push-ups,’ I slyly thought.

Then Balaji went on to Ab-Crunches.
My abs and stomach knew only ‘lunches’. Crunches were real hard to get by.
I didn’t do them all too well. I consoled myself by saying that I already had a to-die-for six-pack- dying with six packs of flab and flesh.

Throughout, Balaji said, ‘Flex, don’t Point your feet. Flex in Hip-hop and Point in Jazz.’

Like we cared about jazz- hip-hop was torturous enough!
Flex or point- there was no point trying to teach us technique.


THE ROUTINE- OH NO, This is NOT A ‘ROUTINE’ CHECK-UP..

The Routine was a set of 8 moves- in one step, a series of which makes a set of routines, to perform for the song ‘Take it to the Floor’.

Now get this right- one routine--> one step-->8 --> in like 4 seconds.
Now, let me check, what did you say the speed of light was?

To top it, every step had an extra ‘and a’ peppered in.

‘And’ was no longer a conjunction, it was a step in itself. Dance defied grammar!
It was like
‘1,2,3,and a,4,5, and a, 6, 7, and a, 8.’
So sometimes a routine, i.e. a step had 11-16 moves in 4 seconds!!!

To get the hang of one move- even that was difficult. Pretzel, Rubel and I struggled to get through the 11-16 steps in 4 seconds.

When each move began to look like a cake walk, Balaji would do the 11-16 moves together in 4 secs- that’s an average of almost 3 moves in one second, when we could only do one thing 11-16 times in four seconds.
We could only let 11-16 drops of saliva drop in 4 seconds, ogling at Balaji, in awe.

(proud of it too!!)

Balaji added another clause to this deal: dance was becoming advanced grammar from Wren and Martin.
‘Don’t just do the step. Throw in THE ATTITUDE and THE ENERGY. Summa Kalainga pa! (Just go casually tease the audience)!’

Yeah right!
We pissed like dogs (kicking one leg up).

We salivated like dogs- looking at Balaji in awe.

We panted like dogs- we finally did 11 moves in 4 seconds.
Now, you wanted us to look great and throw in attitude and energy.

'JUST GO TO THE DOGS!!' (Pant pant- woof woof)

Attitude and energy- That was like spiking a cute, little, lazy Vodafone pug, and asking it to dance electrifying ‘hip hop’ and look like ‘Snoop DOGg’.

"I JUST LOST MY VIRGINITY."

Yeah, that’s exactly what my harem parents said, when I was in Splitsville- that is when I was splitting my legs and dancing a split move.
My black pants just gave away at the back, with a huge slit, right in between my butt cheeks, and my blue underwear saw the world in a whole new light!!

STEPS 5, 6, 7, 8…. SCORE 100..
After all that tossing and turning, we finally did get our moves right.
We’ve just finished our first EXAM in dance, and it feels awesome- absolutely.
We’re the first inter-2 batch across India to have been certified ‘highly commended’ by a dance school in the UK- by 2 phirangs who flew all the way to judge us. We were truly lauded and appreciated.

pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.. (trumpets and jazzy, hip-hop beats)

We're getting our picture in the papers- the whole bunch of us. :)

(Keep this confidential- actually, the entire thing was kinda 'rigged'- we were ALL ranked 'highly commended' even before the judges saw us, with our photos to be in the paper, only to encourage more people to join the dance school for hip-hop, kind of a marketing gimmick- but hell, we got a 'highly commended' certificate and an after-the-exam-party at Hawana!! So TUT-TUT..)

We had spent an ENTIRE day on shopping clothes for the exam!

....AND we didn't find one single attire we wanted ;) So, we wore what we already had.
ULTIMATELY, we ended up being dressed in black and pink, and I think we all looked really good!

...THAT IS,

if you thought

Pretzel and me, showing some cleavage, in non-hip-hop clothes looked good ;)

and Rubel in the decent hip-hop clothes looked better :)

She always made extra efforts to dress decent- what do you call wearing one black, close-necked three quarter sleeved Tee below, and one collared, Pink TEE on the top, on a day, where the temperature went up to 41 degress celcius- she was the only smart-ass hip-hoppee though!!!!!

We have a show coming up soon- will keep you posted on that..

We're 23 GOING ON 24..
AND WE’RE TURNING INTO TODDLERS of 5, 6, 7, 8 THAT DANCE...
STEPS 5, 6, 7, 8….

PS:

BALAJI, you’re the best tutor, we dance because of you- THANK YOU :):):)

Special mention:

Rubel was always told to give out more expressions, as she was concentrating on the steps, and had a monotone expression; in the end, she pulled out a million expressions from cute-to-sexy-to-hot-to-happy-to-hippie-to-heppie-to contrived-to mystical-to elusive-to open-to closed-TO MANY MORE.

JOEY( of friends)- I think Rubel could become a better actor than you! and yeah, she is a better actor even without doing her eyebrows (we didn't do our eyebrows that day)- remember Joey had to 'do his eyebrows' once..

Al-the-guys-who-love-Pretzel: (WHICH INCLUDED ALL GUYS btw, cos everyone loves pretzel)

GUYS, You can ogle at sexy Pretzel for all you care DURING HIP-HOP EXAMS, you can ogle at her 'wherever' you want to ogle and stare. SHe doesn't mind.

She wears such heavy eye-make up, that she CAN'T see WHO is looking WHERE.

(She lined our eyes the same way, it was the smoky look, of-course. )

All wired-up, boosted and padded!

I did a lot of warm-up and push-ups before the dance..

Warm-up by warming and heating my curly(PUBIC) hair into straight strands under the blow-drier.

Push-ups by wearing A push-up BRA!