Mad Atoms

My family finally guilted me into joining a gym.  Most of my day consists of sitting in front of a computer, or sitting in a car, so I can drive somewhere to sit at a computer.  So it's probably a good thing that I'm now moving a little bit some of the time. 

One of the perks that sold me on the gym was the promise of free "Hip-Hop Dance Classes" included with your membership.  I've always been interested in taking a hip-hop dance class, but I never had a clear visual in my head of what "hip-hop dance" actually meant.   

I love hip-hop -- Jay-Z, Outkast, Snoop Dogg -- and dancing to those songs in a club is fun.  Well, guys don't really dance.  We just lean like cholos while girls shake their asses on us (god willing!).  With the right girls, a dance class like that would be awesome.  Sign me up, gym! 

Well, I can't say the class met my expectations, but it did meet my gaypectations, which in turn means that I thought it was Liberace gay.  I watched a class take place in the dance studio through the clear walls.  Uh, I don't know what hip-hop this gym's instructors are listening to, but it looked more like N*Sync than T.I. in there.  They were doing jazz hands, not the Soulja Boy.  Not a booty was shook.

Can this really be considered hip-hop dancing? 

I mean, back in the day, when New Jack Swing topped the charts, rappers did aerobic dance moves.  Kanye West dances, but he does a lot of R&B hip thrusts and slow moves, which I feel is at least tangentially related to hip-hop.  The gym hip-hop moves were straight out of 1998 boy band boot camp.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw them do a variation of the "Bye Bye Bye" arm thing.  You know what I'm talking about. 

Dancing like you're in a boy band is fine, and I'm sure it gives you a good workout, but let's not call it "hip-hop" just because you're technically dancing to hip-hop music.  Until I see T. Pain rocking the jazz square, I consider this false advertising.