Dancing With Fire Will Get You Kicked Out of the Club

Name: DC Pure

Style: Skate Shoes
Age: About 3 years old
Size: 12
General Interests: Skateboarding, graffiti art, throwing rocks at cops, refusing to grow up.

Personality Type: Real trouble makers. They blame parents for being “too overbearing,” then try to get me arrested by waxing up a rail in front of Safeway and skateboarding into old people.

Skate shoes: Every fourteen year old boy owns a pair of these. Heck, pretty much any guy who was a teenager in the last fifteen years has as well. Extremely comfortable, you are supposed to buy them about one size too big (I’m usually an 11) because they are padded to a ridiculous level. This padding is there to protect your feet so that when you’re doing Shove-its and Kickflips, you can’t really hurt yourself. Seriously, I’ve seen these shoes take a BB shot from an air rifle and stop it. They are so padded.

This last Sunday, I took my DCs on a walk through sunny downtown…wait for it…DC. (See what I did there?) They really aren’t any good for walking because of how flat they are, but their padding keeps you from realizing that your feet have gone numb and are slowly gathering blisters. I suppose that can be considered a plus…

I ended up wandering down to the Kennedy Center, where it turned out to be India Week. One of the festivities for this was a free lesson in Bhangra, an Indian dance from the Punjab region. Known by many as “The Most Hilarious Dance in the World,” you may have seen it in a Bollywood movie or an Indian music video, as they break into this type of dance at random.

What, you ask, does this dance look like? Well, if you did not click on the above link, I will try to describe it. Imagine someone making a pistol shape with each hand, pointing at the ceiling, and then waving their arms and pointing in various directions…to a beat. Of course, an important part is that you MUST have a smile on your face. You will be having fun, or else. It really is an art, though I don’t think I got good enough to make it appear as such.

In fact, I just am not good at dancing in general. The joke that “white men can’t dance” may be untrue in a general sense, but the Good Lord did not bless THIS white guy with the sexy hips that are required in most dance styles. Truth be told, I’m not sure if I even have hips, cause I look awkward every time I try to move them.

Can I Salsa? Nope. How about Tango? That’s a joke. I can do some Swing, but let’s be honest…short of being in a wheel chair, there’s not much that can keep someone from being able to swing dance. It’s kind of the short bus of popular dancing.

Trying to learn Bhangra made me feel stupid. I probably looked stupid too. However, I started to realize none of the 200+ people around me looked any better. What a relief. I’m not the only bad dancer out there.

Looking like an idiot in a room of 200+ people…Now that’s A Good Reason to Put on My Shoes.

A better view of the crowd. The lady on stage looked better than any of us.