That's a funny story. Long ago my then-wife/now ex-wife decided to try out the Spinning (tm) class at the nearby gym. Her only cycling experience was about 25 miles total on our 2 tandems (on the first of which -- wholly inappropriate lightweight 531C Orbit racing tandem that wagged like a dog under 2 neophytes -- our inaugural and sole ride ended up with the steerer breaking and sending both of us over the bar).
Anyway, she went to the gym and found it full of die-hard Spinning aficionados with an aggressive coach. The first kefuffle was that she wore regular athletic shoes, but they got her more or less sorted, and she embarked on such a purgatorial ride that about 1/2 way through she came close to fainting and falling off the machine, stopping the class so others could resuscitate her and ask her if she needed a doctor (she is a doctor). That was her last Spinning class. She took up guns and whisky and cigars -- tough little 5'2" 2nd-gen Taiwan Chinese. On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 10:01 AM Bill Lindsay <tapebu...@gmail.com> wrote: > My comical "getting in over my head" story is not a cycling story, but I > think it still has familiar emotions > > My wife is an avid flamenco afficionado. She takes classes multiple times > per week, attends shows almost every weekend, and savors the Spanish, Gypsy > and North African cultural streams that all mix together. The SF Bay Area > has a small but vibrant flamenco community, so usually if you go to a > medium sized show with 100 people in the audience, you're going to see > familiar faces. At small shows, you might know everybody. Performers from > the last show will be in the audience of this show, etc. One of the > traditional parts of flamenco is a percussion element. It's a wooden snare > drum in the shape of a box. The Cajon. The drummer sits on the Cajon and > plays on the front face of the instrument, making a surprising array of > sounds. > > I'm recognized in this small community because I go to a lot of shows, but > I don't dance, sing, or play an instrument. My wife had the idea that we > could learn cajon together. Several years back, a visitor from Spain was > holding a workshop in San Francisco, and she signed us up. The description > said "all levels welcome". I asked "will they have a cajon for each of us > to borrow?" She said "they must! All levels!" > > We got there and every student was a professional percussionist. There > were 8 students in total. Every student had their own cajon, and the class > was entirely in Spanish. There were no familiar faces. My wife and I had > to play on the tops of our thighs. My wife was familiar with all the > rhythms, since she had many years of dancing experience, and was used to > doing *palmas, *which is the clapping accompaniment that is done at > flamenco shows. So she did fine. Then there's me, desperately wanting to > dig a hole in the ground to crawl into and never be heard from again. I > had Literally. No. Clue. The only saving grace is that by being almost > completely silent I was easy to ignore, so i didn't disrupt anybody else's > experience. Also, the experience was sufficiently humiliating to be > humorous. Something completely absurd at least gave me the solace "Well, > this is going to make a good story". > > There is definitely "pushing the limits" of one's comfort zone, and then > there is "you do not belong here". That first cajon experience was > definitely the latter. There's pushing oneself up a level, and there's > imposter syndrome, pretending to belong when you probably don't (or > thinking you don't belong when you actually do belong). Finally there is > being a complete stowaway. > > Since then, we found a cajon player who had taught classes before COVID > but had stopped. We got a small group of friends together to do a beginner > class. We host it in our livingroom. Now we're several months in, and we > did our first recital on-stage during intermission of a small show. Our > teacher, Marlon, is now one of our very close friends. The cajon my wife > bought me for Christmas 2015 is more than a coffee table now. So it's all > worked out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfguxeLPpRabZsoYAVUZtfOowjXhs92tGALexoReGGFBt_A%40mail.gmail.com.
