Our dance class has a social gathering at the end of every term, where students at all different levels get together to cut a rug before heading out for drinks.
\nNormally I find an excuse not to attend, but this week I thought I\u2019d bite the bullet and head along. The teachers say what the dance is going to be before starting each song, and to begin with I felt comfortable enough. I must admit to being slightly dismayed to encounter some fellow students who started at the same time as me but whom I haven\u2019t seen for a while, because they\u2019ve been shoulder tapped to move up to the intermediate class. Never mind, good on them, I say. Then I got asked to dance by someone from the advanced class to do the Rumba. He kept trying to get me to do steps I\u2019d never seen before, spins and reverse turns and such. He was patient enough but I was horribly out of my depth and I think we were both glad when the music ended. The next dance was a quick step, one I know but unfortunately all the leaders were busy and wouldn\u2019t catch my eye. The next dance was the Jive, one I\u2019ve learnt the rudimentary steps for but when my new partner once again tried to spin me around the dance floor, I was completely at sea and could only laugh helplessly as I stumbled through it. My partner said very kindly that he was impressed that I always seemed to be in a good mood, even when I had no idea what I was doing. He didn\u2019t actually say that last bit out loud but I knew what he meant. In spite of everything, I actually really enjoyed myself, although I wasn\u2019t too sorry to be able to cry off going on for drinks.
\nI listened to a podcast the other day which spoke on the benefits of learning another language. One vital lesson was that you learn the importance of being \u201cgood enough\u201d, rather than getting paralyzed by the need for perfection.
\nIt does feel inherently valuable to have these experiences of being crappy at something. It still amazes me the number of junior doctors for whom not passing their (notoriously difficult) professional exams is the first time in their lives they\u2019ve ever failed at anything*. I have to admit, though, that after all these years, the novelty is starting to wear off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
*I must stop using this example; it\u2019s a couple of decades old now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our dance class has a social gathering at the end of every term, where students at all different levels get together to cut a rug before heading out for drinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sa8Ukf-mediocre","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11519,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/09\/freedom-of-movement\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":0},"title":"Freedom of movement","author":"Interloper11","date":"March 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember sitting in a tree at the age of fifteen, thinking that adulthood was very boring, and all anyone ever did was sit around, talking. I then and there vowed to climb a tree every day for the rest of my life. Well, that resolution didn\u2019t even last a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13013,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/21\/on-the-bus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":1},"title":"On the bus","author":"Interloper11","date":"June 21, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Due to a complicated series of events, I\u2019m taking public transport to work today. Samantha needs my soon-to-be-ex Tesla to take Ratdog to the vet this morning. Actually her new name is Flaps, for reasons that will become evident. She and Goofy were running around like mad things in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_6299-225x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12390,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/07\/zumba-class-number-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":2},"title":"Zumba class number one","author":"Interloper11","date":"November 7, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Went to my first Zumba class on Monday. It\u2019s been very hard finding a class that\u2019s at a convenient place and time for me, working long and erratic hours as I do. As it turns out, my Thursday evenings may soon be free, because I\u2019m sick of being the only\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_1010-300x150.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3101,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/16\/pleasant\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":3},"title":"Pleasant","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"We used to often sing along to\u00a0\u201cDowntown\u201d by Petula Clark loudly in the car when the girls were young. I heard it again yesterday, and I couldn\u2019t believe how wholesome Petula\u2019s version of a night out on the razz is. The worst part appears to be the traffic (fair enough\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12893,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/23\/better-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":4},"title":"Better","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"As is often the case, a bit of time and distance has given me some perspective about my pond issues. It\u2019s still sad that so many fish have died, but my dance teacher, who lives in Island Bay, told me this evening that she knows five families who have lost\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_5986-768x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11590,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/cutting-a-rug\/","url_meta":{"origin":12974,"position":5},"title":"Cutting a rug","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Well I\u2019ve been to two dance lessons so far, both of which were much more fun than I expected, so it felt like time to go to my first competition. My dance instructors were a little surprised to see me when I turned up on Saturday, but I did reassure\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0617-1024x652.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0617-1024x652.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_0617-1024x652.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}