Here’s a little known secret about me that I’ll let you in on:  I am THE MOST uncoordinated person on the planet.

Shocker, right?

One wouldn’t think so, considering I played basketball all the way through college and managed to achieve a pretty mean drop step and up and under…but you see, none of this came naturally.  It took me about a YEAR to figure out the right way to do a layup without having to think right, left, up! Or left, right up! And that drop step?  HOURS UPON HOURS after practice with the coach in my ear all, “NO! Not that foot!  NO! You jut traveled! NO! WRONG! AGAIN!” HOURS of hearing how badly I was f-ing up the “simplest move in basketball” and having my body literally placed, one step at a time, in the correct positions for a drop step.

I won’t even get started on the up and under.

My mom used to tell people (maybe that should be present tense? maybe she still does?) that the only place I was ever coordinated was ON the basketball floor (thanks, mom! and no hard feelings. you’re totally spot on).

Also, one summer during basketball camp, my high school coach called an impromptu underclassman only meeting (these camps were on college campuses, so our “rooms” were dorm rooms and that afternoon, the coach went to each one, rally rising everyone into a single room)  No seniors allowed.

And I happened to be a senior.

Since we – the seniors – weren’t allowed, we holed up in a room next to where the carnage was taking place, listening.

He went off the rails about giving your all and leaving it on the floor and then, somehow, I was brought into the mix with him yelling at them all, “Jessica can’t even chew gum and walk!”

Um…I am still not entirely sure how that fit into an attempt at an inspirational speech there, coach…I’m hoping there was something after that I somehow missed like, “but on the basketball floor…she’s a freaking phenom.”

Doubtful.

Anyway, I do have a point.

Each week, I try one new class at the gym.  You know, just to mix it up a little from the at minimum two times a week BodyPump and Spin classes. Last week I did something called “Muscle Blast” – which was like a less difficult version of BodyPump.  It was meh.

If you’ve never done a gym class before, I completely understand why.  I mean, I am taking a risk here.  I’m putting myself out there.  It is kind of extremely daunting to go to a class where you have no idea what is going to happen.  It’s like you walk in and have to figure it all out on the fly.  You’re the new kid on the block with no idea how to get to the secret club house.

This week I decided to try something called Cardio Circuit.

It sounded harmless enough.  It’s cardio.  In a circuit.  Right?

SO. WRONG.

We all had one of those step-up things with one riser thing underneath.  And if I just had to step on that thing, fast or slow or whatever, then I’d be fine.

It all started with marching in place in front of our riser.

I’ve so got that down.

Then the instructor started to get into it and was all, “Basic step!”  And she starts doing some kind of up on the left, down and up on the right and down while her arms are gracefully dancing in the air.

I stare at her feet and arms flying up and down with the beat thinking, “Basic?  I don’t know basic anything.  Hello?  Newbie here.”

Basic step…side kick…drop down and hop skip and hop hop left foot…run twice…

Wait! Wait! I’m trying to match my feet with hers…forget the arms.  The arms can just…whatever.  I thought this was the warm up?….How does one “run twice,” exactly?

V step!…left side.  Do the mambo left!  And now mambo right.  Two step around and double step lunge left siiiide!

V step…Ok. Up and over and down…that’s simple enough for me…Mambo…??!!…WTF?…I start jumping up and down on my riser, trying to keep moving along with everyone else.

Mambo around and double step lunge one side!…hop up…straddle double lunge!

My arms are flailing. ??…

We mambo The group mambos, I half skip, half spin around the riser and then do some kind of lunge activity.

Wait…why is everyone facing the other direction doing their lunges?….I thought…wait…

Speed it up!

I’m still on…wait!…my feet….!?#@@?!?!  I kick the riser and it slides two feet in front of me.

Add the cha-cha!…mambo left! double step…skip, hop, hop, lunge skip over and one jack (jack? like jumping…yup.  like jumping jack)

OMG.  How about run in place?  What happened to the marching? I really excelled in the marching…

Speed it up!  Do the hiiii-ya! (did we go over that one, yet?)…and the charleston right!…lunge twice!…hop, hop left!…run, run…hop, hop right!…two step around…one jack…lunge left…v step left and lunge twice right!

Hop…left…run…charleston…that’s the kicking one…mambo…I have no idea…oh, what the hell?…kick, kick…spin!

Annnnnd double time!

!!!! My brain is already working quadruple time and I still can’t figure out this mambo dancing around the riser…my arms are flapping in the air like a deranged ostrich and damn…there goes my riser again.

We finally make it though the thirty minute choreographed nightmare…only to be instructed to put all of the risers in a long line down the entire wooden floored workout room so we can follow her – one by one – down the line doing all kinds of moves that require movement of both arms and legs and make me look like a drunken orangutan.

Hop, step lunge left!  Hop, step lunge right!  Follow me!

I stand in line behind the first two people and try to match my body with theirs.

Try. Just…try.

I galloped down the line, staring at the instructor, two people in ahead of me, trying to match my body motions with hers.

We kept on going down the risers, doing a different jump, step, lunge double skip-a-di-doo thing and running back to the start to do it all over again.

The entire group was happily dancing down the line like a freaking butterfly and I flailing like a penguin shoved off a cliff.

Then, after about ten minutes or going down the risers and running back around to the right, instructor gets to the end and is all, run around to the left instead of the right! Fooolllooow meeeee!

The two people in front me didn’t follow her the first time, so neither did I.

Back down the line we go.

The instructor gets to the end of the line and yells all, “To the left! Fooolllooowww meeee!”

The pair in front of me swing around to the right – again.

I was all, “What the hell?”

So I went left.

All by myself.

Instructor woman gets excited all, “Someone followed me! Yayayayay!!!…She fooolllooowwwed meeee!”

(obviously, there must be some kind of underlying, deep rooted issue here that I clearly don’t have the coordination to delve into)

I get back to the start of the riser-line-from-hell and the teacher’s-pet-chick who was in the front of the line, right behind the instructor and doing every move like she was born to Cardio Circuit, looked at me and said, all sing-songy, “Showoff!”

I look at her, not sure if she was directing this at me.

She was.

I laughed, completely perplexed, like, really?  Really? Did you not just see my mambo?