When I was 54, I began clogging. It was my daughter's idea. For some reason, she and a couple of friends (one of them near my age) found themselves in a clogging class offered by the Parks and Recreation Department. After their first night, Meagan insisted that I would love it, and that I should join them.
I was skeptical of any activity that would involve putting on funny shoes and moving my feet quickly. Not in general, just in the evening hours, after I'd spent an entire day moving my feet quickly in order to keep up with two or three pre-schoolers. That was why I no longer accepted invitations to play tennis in the evening. (Ok, there were no such invitations. But if there had been, I would have said no.) I was simply beat by 6:00 p.m. However, since it was my Meagan who asked me, I decided to give it a try...
Meagan was right -- I did love it! For some reason, rather than further depleting my energy source (if I truly have one), dancing shores it up! We began slowly, of course. In fact, I thought that perhaps I had overestimated the aerobic benefits of clogging -- that maybe I had misconceived what clogging actually was. Oh, I wasn't one of those misinformed individuals who thought it involved dancing in wooden clogs -- you know, like the Dutch people wear. I may not have been able to explain the difference between tap shoes and clogging shoes with true accuracy, but I did know that like tap, clogging involved some type of noise-producing attachments on your feet.
Sadly, Meagan had overestimated her own fondness of bluegrass music and noisy feet. After a few months -- and the purchase of a rather expensive pair of clogging shoes -- she decided clogging was not her thing. I say "sadly," because I had truly come to look forward to spending a little bit of time once a week with my girl. One of my greatest pleasures in life is sharing laughs with people I love, and you can bet there were plenty of those. I do understand, though. And we still have plenty of laugh-ops. I just wish she would have stayed long enough to have me make her one of those silly, twirly-skirted dresses!
Well, Meagan's no longer a clogger. But I am. I mean, I now think of myself as a Clogger! Clogging has become my lifeline, actually, in more ways than one. Haven't we always heard that one thing we can do to keep our brains young and pliable is to continue pushing ourselves to learn new things? Well, if learning a new routine every couple of weeks isn't such an activity, I'll wear my clogging shoes to church! As for aerobic benifits? Way more than I had anticipated! Clogging involves a lot more jumping than I realized. It wasn't long before simple double-step-this-way, triple-step-that-way became complicated combinations with up and down movement as well as back and forth. And unlike tennis, which is also a good aerobic activity that involves continually learning new things (if one wishes to advance), clogging is non-competitive. (At least the way I do it -- and that's the way I intend to keep it!)
And this is where I shall mention that clogging became part of my life just as jogging was becoming a non-part. Mysteriously, although I could no longer run a mile without having to stop and walk, I found I could clog for two or three hours at a time with only short breaks between routines. So, armed with several practice tapes and a notebook full of cue sheets, I began practicing "an hour a day," as Kenny (our fearless leader) exhorts us, although I think most of us think he's joking. Clogging has become my only regular workout now, and although my fingers occasionally take on a purplish hue, I plan to keep on tapping until I can no longer tie my shoes!
(Photo of Town & Country Cloggers - from left: Kelly, Janice, Autumn, Kate, Becky and Trudy - by Greg Fischer, May, 2008)
I was skeptical of any activity that would involve putting on funny shoes and moving my feet quickly. Not in general, just in the evening hours, after I'd spent an entire day moving my feet quickly in order to keep up with two or three pre-schoolers. That was why I no longer accepted invitations to play tennis in the evening. (Ok, there were no such invitations. But if there had been, I would have said no.) I was simply beat by 6:00 p.m. However, since it was my Meagan who asked me, I decided to give it a try...
Meagan was right -- I did love it! For some reason, rather than further depleting my energy source (if I truly have one), dancing shores it up! We began slowly, of course. In fact, I thought that perhaps I had overestimated the aerobic benefits of clogging -- that maybe I had misconceived what clogging actually was. Oh, I wasn't one of those misinformed individuals who thought it involved dancing in wooden clogs -- you know, like the Dutch people wear. I may not have been able to explain the difference between tap shoes and clogging shoes with true accuracy, but I did know that like tap, clogging involved some type of noise-producing attachments on your feet.
Sadly, Meagan had overestimated her own fondness of bluegrass music and noisy feet. After a few months -- and the purchase of a rather expensive pair of clogging shoes -- she decided clogging was not her thing. I say "sadly," because I had truly come to look forward to spending a little bit of time once a week with my girl. One of my greatest pleasures in life is sharing laughs with people I love, and you can bet there were plenty of those. I do understand, though. And we still have plenty of laugh-ops. I just wish she would have stayed long enough to have me make her one of those silly, twirly-skirted dresses!
Well, Meagan's no longer a clogger. But I am. I mean, I now think of myself as a Clogger! Clogging has become my lifeline, actually, in more ways than one. Haven't we always heard that one thing we can do to keep our brains young and pliable is to continue pushing ourselves to learn new things? Well, if learning a new routine every couple of weeks isn't such an activity, I'll wear my clogging shoes to church! As for aerobic benifits? Way more than I had anticipated! Clogging involves a lot more jumping than I realized. It wasn't long before simple double-step-this-way, triple-step-that-way became complicated combinations with up and down movement as well as back and forth. And unlike tennis, which is also a good aerobic activity that involves continually learning new things (if one wishes to advance), clogging is non-competitive. (At least the way I do it -- and that's the way I intend to keep it!)
And this is where I shall mention that clogging became part of my life just as jogging was becoming a non-part. Mysteriously, although I could no longer run a mile without having to stop and walk, I found I could clog for two or three hours at a time with only short breaks between routines. So, armed with several practice tapes and a notebook full of cue sheets, I began practicing "an hour a day," as Kenny (our fearless leader) exhorts us, although I think most of us think he's joking. Clogging has become my only regular workout now, and although my fingers occasionally take on a purplish hue, I plan to keep on tapping until I can no longer tie my shoes!
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