Muscles like wet noodles.

On Monday night I went with two of my friends to our first West African Dance class. Hoo boy. The class takes place in this beautiful octoganal wood building deep in the woods, and there were quite a few people who were regulars there. Unlike Western dance classes, in West African Dance there is not a lot of instruction. The teacher did have us remain closer to her than the veterans, at the front of three lines of women who followed her to the drummers and then circled back. We danced in lines like this all night, and it was two hours of some of the most intense aerobic activity that I've ever undertaken. Not to mention the steps, which were out of the book of World's Most Complicated Dance Steps, if there is such a thing. We were learning two dances from Guinea which were very complex, and I tried to throw myself into it, as did my friends, and we were, well, beginners. Something I'm not good at is beginning anything. Which is why a class is good for me. There's just enough pressure that I don't throw in the towel. (Just ask my superstar husband how quickly I get annoyed and discouraged if he is trying to teach me something.)

So, a couple of days later, it is probably no wonder that I feel as I have only felt once before, after my first and second days of trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal. Then my calves felt like someone had been hitting them with a mallet, and I couldn't bend my knees, and I was hoping that someone would just fix me a plate of Dal Bhat in the nearest village and then leave me there to die. Now I'm stiff, like I was stiff then, although right now I don't have to carry a huge pack on my back, which is good, because I wouldn't do it, even if someone tried to make me, I would throw in the towel.

Anyways. The class was fun. I look forward to being humiliated all over again next week.