Final Blog Project: "The Truthfulness of Hips" (submitted to Speak Magazine)

Showtime.

The audience waited. The music began. Jess and I danced towards each other in front of the classroom, swaying our hips with all of our gringa glory. We bounced from side to side and spun each other around. We giggled.

"¿Alguien sabe el baile?"

"¿Cha cha?" someone offered.

We cued up the Power Point. "El merengue," we responded proudly.

"Oh," our professor said. "You're dancing to salsa music."

A fine start, indeed.

I would have made a lovely ballerina, but I’m not a terrible gymnast. I'm pretty solid in Spanish. Combine Spanish and dancing, and the phrase "analysis breeds paralysis" comes to mind: How come nobody else looks like an idiot besides me?

My incompetence was first revealed during Africana Dance last semester (which, ironically, nearly every gymnast in the class had to withdraw from due to injury). I was pretty good at slapping the floor to the drumbeat and waving my arms in a tribal manner. But when it came time to salsa, my professor inevitably walked over and poked my hips. Move those.

I moved them. All right. I had a rhythm going. The music was moving. I was moving.

I finally looked in the mirror and saw a pale girl dancing in the manner of a child learning to hula and failing at it.

I’ve yet to find a Latina or black woman incapable of rocking out to any rhythm. Turn up the music, clear off the dance floor, and watch them work their magic. Ah, if only my European ancestors had jumped and clapped to driving drumbeats instead of dancing stiffly in a parlor somewhere…

But I won’t take on the burden of my ancestors. So Emeline (the sole gymnast survivor of Africana Dance) turned on Shakira and gave me an impromptu dance lesson in her room one Saturday night before we went out.

“You know my hips don’t lie…” the Colombian singer crooned seductively.

"Loosen up your arms," my housemate instructed. "You're not doing a floor routine."

True.

Emeline poked my hips. She pretended to grind on me and I ran away. She spun in circles and I imitated, knocking a picture frame to the floor.

In the end, she stood back, watched, and said, "Much better than before."

My confidence boosted, I figured the two-step merengue would be manageable as our group project for Spanish 319. Jess and I danced to YouTube videos in the Mac lab. We talked merengue. We visualized it. Miranda was wise and opted to play the music instead.

Undeterred by that minor error of salsa instead of merengue music, we invited the class to join the "dance floor." Well, how about that? Our professor could do the merengue, and it looked nothing like our very enthusiastic version.

"That was perfecta," a classmate said as I took my seat.

Well, perhaps not. But I'll still be moving to music anytime I hear it. Regardless of how I look.

"All good things must pass" -- A reflection on Writing Sports Literature

Well, friends, it's been a ride.

Reading:
1] I've read many a pretentious "how-to-write" book in my day, and Writing True was the complete opposite. The book managed to be both helpful and encouraging, offering a variety of "Ways In" that encourage the writer to be original, rather than, "Follow this format because it's the proper way to write."

2] Several stories resonate from the collection we read: "Dirty Moves," "What Goes Ninety-five Miles per Hour for Seventeen Days...," "The Shadow Boxer," "A (Fishing) Hole in One" (yes, I actually liked that one), and "Raising the Dead." For me, these stories were the most engaging while smoothly combining research and issues. All effectively presented a non-mainstream sport in a way to engage an audience unfamiliar with the rules of wrestling or the dangers of scuba diving.

Class time:

Although we all groaned, writing on the chalkboard did indeed illustrate the structure of the stories: the issues at hand and how they moved, the details, the resolution. Variety during class, though, would help maintain the students' interest: perhaps having a group of students be responsible for illustrating a particular story for the class, or having the class direct the professor as he diagrams the story. Otherwise, the groups focused on their own section of the board without interacting with the other clusters.

The grammar presentation, especially the section about active v. passive verbs, was informative. (Ahh! There I go with a passive statement...) The presentation, however, would have been better timed had it been given before or right after Paper 1, instead of in the midst of Paper 2.

The few classes we had to simply work on our papers were the most effective for me. I could read over my own story or pass it to a friend if I so chose. While workshops are an integral part of the writing process, having the professor look over my paper was most beneficial to me. Sir Emerson took the time to sit down with each student and glance over his or her paper, although many other students waited.

Writing:

The blogs were a fine idea and, from what I've seen, successful. I like blogging.

I appreciated our professor's heavy emphasis on the importance of research: a necessary evil, indeed. The papers I've written for other classes usually include heavy citations from a story/poem, or are entirely creative pieces that don't need any sort of "tangible" foothold. And alas, my writing has drastically improved through the necessity of research. (The Prof. should subtitle this course as, "'Research' is Not a Dirty Word.")

Research was much easier with topics that I had little to no knowledge of -- after all, I was starting with nothing. I struggled with research in my second paper because my search queries were often too specific. Plus, having done gymnastics for many moons, many facts have become internalized over the years.

When I edited that assignment, however, I suddenly found new openings: ways to incorporate general research into a specific topic, thus making the story (hopefully) more relatable to non-gymnast readers. The ability to find, and utilize, such research has most certainly improved my writing. Who wants to read a story that they can't connect to?

The professor's requirement that we all submit to a publication (yeah, Transition!) made our writing a whole lot more "real." We weren't merely writing for a grade, but for (hopefully) a much wider audience. I'm not certain that the New York Road Runner will want to read my Paper 1. Someone out there, however, just might. Perhaps some high school girls on a bus somewhere to a meet...

Miscellaneous:

I learned how to play chess, which I probably wouldn't ever have had the time/motivation to do on my own. And whaddaya know? I really enjoyed playing, which allowed me to enjoy...writing.

Straight from the heart (Bryan Adams-style)

I actually used yesterday's snow day in an effective manner: I worked on my paper and played Steve in chess.

This paper has actually become close to my heart. It was a wise scheme, I believe, to choose a topic I knew nothing about. The more I unearth about chess, the more quirky -- yet normal -- find the game to be. I've been chipping at it for weeks now, and alas, I have arrived to the cusp of page fourteen -- enough pages in to know that there's much, much more to be said.

I think I'm doing an all right job for a "newb," though.

And, of course, Steve owned me. I didn't even capture any of his pieces. But I didn't mind. Strange for a fairly competitive person to say. But really -- I've literally played chess twice. Every male that I've surveyed so far (and my mom, as it turns out) claims to know how to play. Gender isn't the issue, though; it's experience.

So as Steve's bishop slid towards my king and I worked to defend it with my knight -- and ultimately failed -- I was already contemplating how I could improve -- see more -- be better prepared.

I lose gracefully. You can't break my spirit.

Fantastic.

I knew there was a reason I'd decided to write about chess!

Aqui, amigos.

Oof.

Throw your hands up if the end of the semester is kicking your ass!

Slash and burn!

I enjoy revising.

Ooh! A shocking assertion, to be sure. Sometimes I feel "done" with a piece -- good, bad, or ugly, it's time to move on and maybe use the brighter glimpses of it for another (hopefully better) piece one day.

But usually I sense that something's amiss. Perhaps too much information, too little, not enough coherence, overclarification, etc. Perhaps fragments that don't really make sense, such as the one I just wrote. And thus I sit down, as I did this weekend, and stare at the document for a long while.

In some ways revision can be almost as daunting as writing a fresh piece. Sometimes the same despair creeps in: What am I going for here? Is this even salvageable?

On Saturday, though, some distance from the paper made it much easier to see where I could insert more research. I referred to specific overuse injuries common to gymnasts. I developed some of the other stories -- those of Kerri Strug and the experiences of my teammates. As much as we outwardly grumble about writing on the board (but, of course, inwardly love it), I've found that breaking down the readings into sections, and then analyzing those sections further, has given me a better sense of the structure to aim for in my own pieces.

I'm hoping I'll be able to pull the chess piece (my topic for the third paper) together in a satisfactory manner. I can see several stories: mental v. physical sports, the role of a women in sports, the simple challenge of playing the game. The second draft may very well end up being one huge mess. But hopefully it'll be a mess I can work through.

In the meantime, I've been focused on revising Assignment Two. I hit page 16 and realized that there's still much more to write. The paper feels better already, though: more universal, more connected. To be honest, I'll likely need another revision after this one. I'll probably have to cut down, though on what specifically, I can't tell just yet. Whenever the "research-y" paragraphs threaten to dominate the pages, I've tried to insert dialogue -- which, of course, serves to make the piece longer. But I feel that the story is starting to move somewhere else -- somewhere better.

It is raining right now and I feel nothing, really. A bit tired. A bit of heat from the laptop. A bit thirsty. A bit annoyed. A bit "I'm going to kick some ass." A bit "I know I won't really kick some ass."

A bit of nothing, really. My mind and I have been wedded for so long that anything on the verge of appearing interesting right now is shrugged off. All right, I guess.

I liked playing chess last night. The game finished almost an hour and a half after beginning due to instructional breaks and sips of Arnold Palmer.

"Non-linear," I repeated at one point, picking up my pen to write down the note.

Mike sighed. "I'm going to need patience."

My king danced around the board for a solid twenty minutes. He refused to get captured. Sort of like me in many things, I think. Losing but holding off the final moments, waiting for a breakthrough, a miraculous mishap, anything.

I liked having to think in all different directions, none of which would really mean anything in the end. But they did right then. It was so incredibly pressing that I move on this diagonal and not on that one. That I advanced up the side. That I stayed put and discovered a defense that I hadn't realized earlier.

I challenged Steve to a match:

"hahahaha is that what you needed help with???"

Well...yes.

"sounds reasonable."

Then later,

"P.S. Jay told me that he saw you at the library...practicing chess. I laughed. At you, naturally."

It's on, Steve. It is on.

I don't really care if it's on or not, though. It will be something to do. Something to write about.

It continues raining, something falls to the floor in another room, and I'm still here with not much of anything.