This was the first class of October, because we had to miss two whole sessions because the center was shut down for the long Chuseok Holiday of 2025.
Thanks to diligent coaching from @fayet my long distance dance guru, I'd been trying to 'find' my left foot by doing a series of exercises with it every night - releves, then one footed balances, then one footed jumps.
I've been pretty diligent about it, because I trust @fayet and I also like to add routines and then cross them off on the calendar in a Don't-Break-The-Chain Way.
And after a 2 week break we were back in dance class and I FOUND MY LEFT FOOT. Like, my foot LEAVES THE FLOOR without me having to call out for it like it's Major Tom in the David Bowie song.
I kept being astonished like, Hey? Oop hey again? HEY! Hey this is ... WORKING??
We did IVE's XOXZ which.... I remembered a lot more of with my body than I was expecting! And we did Black Pink's Jump again, which... same deal. Huh.
We also started to learn a nonsense song, about something something - I am a rich man by Aespa, whom I now hate on principle. We're learning not the whole song but the 'point' dance for it, with lots of 'showing off my rings' finger fluttering. The lyrics get on my nerves, but that's because I'm a humorless feminist who never forgets, ever, two facts:
1) Korean women make 70% of what Korean men make and
2) 57% of working Korean women are temporary (as opposed to full time, hard to fire) employees compared to 26% of working Korean men.
WE ARE ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE NEAR BEING RICH MEN.
But my all woman dance class was a lot of fun. So yah.
Kpop Dance Class 43 and 44, plus I 'passed' Intro Shuffle Dance (within 7 classes).
i don't actually remember wtf the song was for class 43. I just. Plain. Cannot remember. I do remember I was late for it, and managed to follow along anyway.
So for Class 44, which was July 3, 2026, I trundled into class and found we had THREE new members, one of whom was this big dude, who came with his two female friends (family members?? not clear). They're all in their 50s, I think, and doing it for a lark. Well one of them was actually like, in a cute cheerleader-ballerina kind of skirt, under a comfy t shirt and over black leggings, and she was really committed to learning the steps.
The teacher, thinking she had the more advanced student and me, picked this song to be our class for my 44th Kpop class.
There's SO MUCH going on in this dance. All I know about Katseye is that there's a beautiful black girl with a French sounding name, who went on leave, and like, that fandom exploded with outrage and accusations. Having done this dance, i think maybe she really was exhausted, because this was the most athletic girl group dance I've ever done.
And, to my great surprise, I found that I could actually do all the steps as they were taught, and then retain them, and then do all the steps at speed. Not really dance them, the way the teacher in that video is doing, obviously, but actually do the steps with some integrity. I don't know how she's doing that with her hair, plus I'm scared my nerd glasses will fly off my face OR I'll otherwise hurt myself so I don't dare do the hair flips, but still. The foot work - flipping to the back to do the (incompetent) hip tossing (I don't actually know how to twerk), and then the right foot kick leading to the left foot straight out with a hip cock for the first pair of I'm the shit repeats, and then the foot turn and kick out for the third repeat for I'm the shit? Those are actually very tricky, and I know for a fact I couldn't have done them in the first 'term' of my dance lessons, at all. Or the thing where you look over your shoulder to do the left-right-left shift? I would lose my feet whenever I had to go back to front.
But not anymore. So that felt really great.
The three new classmates were repeatedly warned by the teacher that we were doing a hard one today, but they were great sports about it and had a good time, laughing at their own errors rather than getting horrified in a perfectionist way like I did and like White Hat did (she never did come back). They were so into the class that they stayed behind and asked the teacher to do a demonstration for them so one of them could film it and practice at home. I really hope they come back.
I do think the 7 (I had to miss one) classes of Shuffle Dance helped a lot. They actually did 'test' us. I mean it wasn't as harsh as all that - the trainee teacher did the steps with us, but we went through the whole sequence of Running Man (4 variations), Malaysian Running Man, T step, Charleston (3 variations), V step, criss cross, W step.
We all 'passed,' so I signed up for Level 1 Shuffle dance for a month to see if I continue to get benefits from it, in terms of my feet.
When we were done the teacher took a brief survey to ask, Which shuffle dance step did you see in the wild that made you want to learn Shuffle Dance?
And I don't think I'd realized it until then but I figured out in that moment that I'd taken shuffle dance because of Yeonjun.
Specifically this dance for I'll See You There Tomorrow, which had a resurgence viral moment. Especially at around the 10 second mark when they're singing '내일에서 기다릴테니" and he does the multiple ankle twists while tapping his back foot on the ground, and there's also a very short Charleston in there, AND a super-fast blink-and you'll miss it V step. I knew that I was not able to do all that with my ankles and feet, because of pronation and balance problems, and I wanted to learn. So my answer was Charleston and V Step. (I managed to not say, Yeonjun of TXT haha).
So now I can do this whole sequence without falling over or hurting myself, and on time, even, and cleanly.
Hooray. :D Apparently this song is the Teach Koreans Shuffle Dance in Korea song, because it's our class song too.
My Friday p.m Kpop Dance Class was not canceled!!! HOORAY~~ White Hat did not sign up, as she had hinted (maybe she is going to the morning one), but two new students joined! A woman who looks about college age and honestly, the impression I had of her on sight was Engineer so I'm going to call her that, and an older woman of an age cohort I wouldn't have expected to take Kpop dance class, that I'll call the Hobbyist.
I was late, and the teacher was already started, doing this:
IOI's comeback song, which this Youtube teacher says is elevated 'beginner.' (Don't know who IOI are, but from the song snippet I heard at half speed, then 0.8x and then actual speed over and over for 40 minutes or so, it sounds like a charming mix of Trot and Pop).
My capacity to stay focused and 'in' my body waxes and wanes, and with it my capacity to follow along with the choreo. On the other hand, stuff that was literally impossible a year ago (like going down on one knee to do hand-and-arm movements and then getting back up, on the beat) I can now just follow along in the mirror without much hesitation. Great!
A new problem I'm encountering now is that I get so obsessed with doing a 'recitation' of the steps that I am not dancing. I move faster than the beat or sweep through a move that's supposed to be slow because I know what it is and I want to execute it because Ooh Ooh I know this one! But this is what it is to be bad at dancing, to execute the moves like a wind up toy without relationship to the music or the counts.
This is not Engineer's first time at a dance class at all, whatsoever. She's great. Ms. Hobbyist is less experienced, but she doesn't get upset when she can't do a thing the way I used to and White Hat definitely did. When the class was just me and White Hat, the teacher turned the class into a 'one day' seminar type thing where we didn't try to build on what had been learned the week before to do the full choreo or anything, but she's going to try to do that now, because she's got the Engineer.
I also went to my fourth Shuffle Dance Intro class on Sunday morning. Left foot is still a problem. Also, Shuffle Dance is apparently developed enough as a dance genre for there to be regional variations. There's the Running Man, and then a Malaysian variation, the um, Malaysian Running Man (back foot goes out on a diagonal) which also has a can-can-kick added variation that Korean Shuffle Dance does not use. I find this Malaysian Running Man very very confusing to do, because it requires a diagonal- left-foot-to-back movement and anything that makes me use my left foot first while in motion just makes me lose physical control.
The shuffle dance school is very systematic, where each 'level' of class has very clearly articulated goals and you 'have to' move up to the next level and so on. I'm not sure about this, because my goal is to find my left foot and not get into Advanced Shuffle Dance or whatever, but yeah. It's really nice to have this patiently taught class where I get to do stuff with my body I never ever do in any other activity on a weekend morning.
I was starting to get sick at the point I took class 35, when we were down to two students - White Hat and me. And I have very little recall of that class except the teacher tried to do a 'do you remember the previous lesson' bit and neither of us had any recollection whatsoever about the dance. LOL.
The way this teacher does the dance class is that she picks some 'point' choreo that can be taught in one 50 minute session. The previous teacher split up a whole song into two or three classes. Each way actually has its advantages, but I just haven't been well for most of this month so practicing at home was not going to happen anyway.
We did this bit
Except the way this teacher explains it is a bit different -she's doing the dance steps quite differently from the way my teacher taught them.
The bit where you face the side, and twist your left hip forwards while going right-left-right with your arms turns out to be IMMENSELY difficult because I am still having connectivity issues with my left side. The bit where you cock your head to the left to the little bounce was surprisingly scary to do (in that I watched myself avoid doing it) because of my pre-exising fears to do with my catastrophic neck injury from before.
But it was a lot of fun. And a LOT of what this Dayoung does in her MV is very complicated, but of course, I neglected to remember when I first got the notice that this would be what we were doing that every Kpop choreo now has this 'easy to do ' bit where Kpop stars are going to teach it to each other in literally 2 minutes and spend 5 minutes filming for tiktok virality (and it takes me 50 minutes to learn to do in a haphazard way).
I couldn't go at all last week because I was just too sick, and White Hat asked me during one of the very few breaks this teacher gives us in the lesson why I didn't come. I told her I'd just been too ill and asked in turn if she had a private lesson last time. She had! Because we originally started out with five registered members but we're down to two. The teacher, looking regretful, said that this happened a lot with adult classes, and that if it's not at least 4 or 5 people who register the class might disappear.
"The class can't be canceled!!" White Hat said. "I intend to come every week!" Then to me, she goes, "YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP COMING TOO RIGHT??" And I said Yeah. My other teacher at the fancier dept store center only teaches there on Mondays now and it just doesn't work with my schedule.
This was 'easy' choreo but I am noticing with yet again with Kpop -very few of the steps are actually difficult' - it's doing them really fast, and then moving on to the next and next and next every 2 to 4 beats at a clip that's difficult.
I don't like this song but I had a really great time. I'm at this weird stage where I can kind of ape the moves semi-competently, but I can also see very very clearly exactly what's wrong with the wrong things I'm doing but I can't figure out what the fix is. Like that move with the arm raised and you draw a big circle with your pelvis as you do a demi plie at the start - does my knee bend need to be deeper or am I stiff in the hips? thighs? waist?? What am I not moving enough or in the right way so I can't get that rounded quality of movement??
Next class isn't until May 8 because the center is closed for May 1. I found a little playlist of like ''drills' for kpop dancers so maybe I'll do that May 1. I am finding that skipping a week of kpop dance class makes me save a lot of 'how to dance' shorts off of instagram even though I know, rationally, that I don't have time or really, the desire to do them by myself at home, because I miss it.
So, last you heard of it, at the end of November 2025, I was excited that my teacher at the G** cultural center was going to continue with the Kpop dance class even if she only had three or four students. Classes were supposed to start for the winter term the first Friday of December.
Guess what happened on the 4th of December 2025?
A sudden snow storm, masses of drivers unprepared for the snow, the authorities also unready for the snow. My commute drive, which usually takes about 50 minutes, took 390 minutes. Yeah that's not a typo. It took me six and a half hours to get home because I had to be at a total standstill along with all the other cars for over 5 hours. It was like that old music video where nobody can go anywhere. Except like we couldn't abandon our cars and walk because it was freezing and snowing and YAY.
The next day, G** cultural center called me to say the teacher had been in a car accident and could not teach the winter term.
OH NO.
She wasn't badly hurt, they said, just unable to teach.
So I just thought, OK maybe it's a sign. Maybe I'll wait for Spring term, starting March, because maybe she'll come back then?
But I missed it so bad, my Friday evening Kpop dance class to wrap up the week. I'd taken to refusing Friday plans and moving them all to either Thursday or Saturday so I could have my 50 minute class.
I looked at other 'for working adults who don't intend to ever go pro' kpop or hiphop dance classes, and surprisingly, there were two schools that also had like, 'audition prep' classes and stuff two subway stops from my apartment, and multiple other cultural centers associated with different malls near work.
I hesitated at signing up though, because I thought ... I mean had 30 weeks of classes. Like, that's enough, no?
But then came the dream: I was at G* Center with my original teacher, and I was saying, I'm so glad you're back! I have missed kpop dance class so much!
Well ok then Ms. Subconscious, I'll sign us up for Kpop dance class, OK? Jeez.
I picked the one with the most convenient time near work, because I figured I should just make it as frictionless as possible - on my way home, easy parking, at the right time on the day I want to have kpop class. Let's call this one the L* Center.
First class was today! This center had a smaller dance room than the one at G** Center but it's also a cheaper class. I realized why when the teacher came in - she looks like a college student. The teacher at G** center had a kid in middle school. But this class had four attendees, which was one more than we usually got at G*.
We started with Where You At by AllDay Project, the one that Annie Moon is with - you know, that ivy League Samsung Heiress Idol that wants to buy date Yunho of Ateez. So I was cracking up inside at learning this dance.
Having a younger teacher means it's different. She goes faster, and then she's like OK NOW YOU ALL DO IT BY YOURSELVES. Girl, what? And she goes from 0.7x speed to full speed REALLY FAST. Granted, this dance is designed for ticktok so it's pretty stationary, but my teacher at G* never turned on the music to full speed and went GO at us lol.
It was really fun. The dance is easy, the teacher is clear, there are moves that I know how to do - there's a hairflip half jump that was in Black Pink's "Jump", there's a left-foot-right-foot while you swing your right shoulder down to your left knee and back up that was in le Sseraphim's "Spaghetti." I've been studying Itzy's dance practices and Yuna especially was screaming in frustration every time she got what I thought was a minor finger motion wrong, and then it clicked - these little details on the fingers and head angles is kind of the whole point of Kpop dancing, because you're not like, doing pirouettes or jetes or balances. So the recognition that the details really matter made it easier to catch the details in this "Where You At" dance, but maybe that's putting the cart before the horse.
From just sheer consistent class attendance, moving my feet and getting into the basics of up and down are no longer so impossible, so I can add in the important details?
It was a fun class. As per usual, anything that you get as an official 'class' in Korea is gonna be taught by some excellent woman. Awesome.
My 30th Kpop dance class fell on the last Friday of the month, which made it a filming day. I think that's why I was the only one that showed up. You see, Antwaist missed one (or was it two?) classes during this term, during the lead up to learning the Spaghetti steps, and so did the Tall One. I think maybe they didn't want to come and be filmed for a dance for which they weren't ready.
And see. This is where NOT MONITORING is actually good for consistency. I never watched these, so it doesn't matter to me what happens in them, and the act of being filmed doesn't function as a psychological barrier to going to the class to do the dancing. DOING THE THING is the point, you know, but in our era, living how we live, it's impossible (just absolutely impossible) to not be negatively affected by being confronted with how you look on camera.
So I went and I was the only student. The teacher wasn't in the room, and it turned out she went to have a talk with Front Desk about whether or not to continue this class in the new term if she is going to be confronted with an empty classroom.
This is what I like about dancers - Dancers want to work. They want to do the thing. I noticed this in all the ballet and Broadway documentaries I've watched too - THEY WANT TO DO THE THING really really badly, even though it frequently hurts, doesn't pay, the system is unfair, and their working lives consist of being told, often in insulting ways, that they're doing it wrong by people who can't do it at all.
I think maybe to work off stress, my teacher made me do a whole workout with her instead of our usual warm up. We did like, a bazillion squats really fast. I was out of breath at her pace and my legs hurt and my thoughts were whirring as my brain tried to get away from the discomfort of my body:
OMG I'm gonna die -> Why are all dancers such masochists? ->My pilates instructor is a modern dancer and she's constantly trying to figure out how to cause herself (and me) different kinds of 'good' pain. -> But wait, my most favorite group of 8 people all being dancers means all of them are masochists too! -> And the other group of 8 also being dancers, and the other-other group being 5 dancers who synch up unusually well and then the other-other-other group being 7 dancers -> THE GIRLS IN ITZY ARE 5 ADDITIONAL MASOCHISTS -> I AM SURROUNDED BY PERVERTS -
You see, I had to go outside my body to withstand this onslaught of every kind of squat sequence that she was making me do. Then she taught me the on-the-floor opening portions of the Spaghetti dance (and I just couldn't get fast enough to be on time for one of the moves), then we did run throughs before we tape it, just the two of us.
In closing my teacher said that there were five people - Antwaist, the Tall One, me, and then one new woman in her 30s and a new woman in her 50s. Her plan was to do boy group dances next term - December through February - but would the new woman, esp the lady in her 50s be able to keep up?? - should she cancel the class??
I said I hoped she wouldn't but just in case she did, I thanked her and told her I gained a lot from her class (I learned for example that I have no relationship with my left foot).
I just got this text from the center! The class is on!! She didn't cancel!
Today we took on Like Jennie once again, with Vata choreography. Vata stuff is fun to dance, I must say. Very intuitive and on the beat and just, fun. I've done parts of it before, but this teacher is teaching it differently than my previous teacher, with emphasis on different details, so it feels somewhat like a new dance.
Three of the four students were there.
I still look wrong somehow. Lack of bounce is one problem. Since we're doing a dance where I know the steps, I am not having the 'can't lift my left foot' problem for this dance, but why does it look.. wrong? I need to think about this.
The teacher tried to get us recall the All Day Project dance we learned last week, and unfortunately I have zero retention. SIGH. I still need to practice at home, obviously.
I am also slowly feeling like a 50 minute class is somehow too short. I don't know if this is hubris or a natural progression, but I kind of want to be in class for like 80 minutes so we can do more run throughs after doing the reminder-and-add-more-bits parts are over. But this is the problem of being a beginner who has just barely escaped absolute beginner status - I am probably assuming I can actually do a lot more than I really can, just because this 50 minute format with a patient teacher whom I suspect teaches little kids the rest of the time feels doable.
But .. the temptation is there, to be maybe a tiny bit more ambitious about this hobby. I'm going to let that thought percolate.
