She’s clinging to the nearest passerby.

I learned something today. I learned that I am completely without coordination. Here’s how:

The longer I spent in that last town, sedentary and car-commuting, the more I knew I needed to start doing some sort of exercising. Except I never had the extra money to take a class (plus, when you work until 7, you get used to class scheduling difficulties).
So I figured I’d bring some exercise DVDs home from the library I was working at. All I could find was Paula Abdul’s workout video* and a Bollywood thing. Paula had nostalgia going for her; my friend Cindy had the video in college, memorized the dances, and could sometimes be persuaded to do bits at 80s night. If we weren’t too busy with our ridiculous “Like a Prayer” dance, that is. The Bollywood one had good music going for it (bhangra) and the logic that Cara bellydances, and Cara and I 80s night dance similarly, so I thought I could do well.
Oh, how wrong I was. That’s when I remembered that my 80s night Dance Machine style evolved based on how little I can follow someone else’s dance move instruction. There’s a reason why Lara took ballet classes and I filmed Lara’s ballet classes, after all.**
Then I moved here and, while moving into my third floor apartment, got way more winded than necessary. I walk a lot more, but I still need something. And I’m just not a gym kinda girl. Mostly in that I know I don’t have the willpower to motivate myself to go to the gym. Nor do I want to spend the money, or explain to overly friendly gym—mates why I’m wearing a tshirt with “We’re yr inner Kim Gordon & Moe Tucker. We’re here to kick your ass, inner Richard Marx!” on it.
So I put the Punk Rock Aerobics book on my holiday list. It’s kind of perfect for me: instructions for exercises, how to put them together into a respectable class dealie, and song recommendations, including the notion of stretching to Joy Division. And pictures of a pigtailed Mary Timony doing jumping jacks!
Unfortunately, the laptop I’m using right now gets cranky when you try to upload cds, so I had a limited selection for my mix. Luckily, though, Tiff was using this guy to make mixes, so there were still lots of things to choose from. Including London Calling, which is doubly fortunate as pogoing and skanking are two of the few punk rock aerobic moves I really excel at.
Basically, here’s my problem. I can master 2, maybe 2.5, steps. 3 steps I can maybe sometimes get, if they’re baby steps. 4? Naw, I was a mess: losing my balance, falling over shit, the works. I also am pretty much physically incapable of any exercise/dance move that involves moving one’s left leg and right arm at the same time. That whole opposite thing. Also, when I pick my foot up and put it down behind me, it’s never in the same place twice. This is also, if you were wondering, why I do so terribly at Dance Dance Revolution. I lose the arrows.
But I know my weaknesses, and I know the others may come with practice. Now I just need to learn to stop jumping on the loose floorboard in my bedroom.

*Can you believe they bothered to release this in DVD!?
**My first super8 film was from her beginning en pointe class. It looked really good, but I never picked it up from Filmmakers after the big projection night.