Dance Room Rules

Somewhere it is written that not all dance teachers are created equal.  Where this is written, I'm not sure.  It might be in the Torah, under "Jazz Hands."  Yes, that's it.  The SJG has been dancing my tuchus off for many decades now.  So much dancing and spinning and turning, it makes me dizzy just thinking about it.  And yet, with all that dancing, why does my tuchus still look like this?  The answer lies within the cookie drawer, or the bottom half of the fridge, where the ice cream lives.  I've had demanding dance teachers.  I've had temperamental dance teachers.  I've had mean ones and nice ones until suddenly they're not nice anymore.  Screamers and yellers and passive aggressive nutcases.  I've had a dance teacher sneak up behind me, while I was attempting a double turn, and order  me to, "Commit!"  Future dance teachers take note.  This is not a good thing to yell at a dancer.  Maybe later you can yank your dancer aside and ask, "Why didn't you commit to the turn?  Why?  Why?  Why?!"  But please, dance people, don't yell it mid-turn.  It's not going to help anyone, particularly those with self-esteem issues.  Save the abuse for later.  The subject of great vs. wacko teachers leads me, once again, to my favorite teacher ever, the man I call Dougie.  Doug Rivera has been dancing and teaching longer than I've been alive, which, as we know, is already a long time.  I've never seen Doug lose his temper, but sometimes, like last night, he likes to list his dance room rules, just to see if we're paying attention.  "No coughing," he said, after one of his students coughed.  "No laughing," he said, looking directly at me.  "This is a serious dance class."  "Since when?" I asked.  "No talking back to the teacher," he said, again looking at me.  "Anything else?" I asked.  "No crying in dance class."  That seemed reasonable.  I've yet to cry in dance class.  I like to cry about my shi**y double turns later, in the car on the way home.  "Can we whine?" I asked.  "No whining.  No yenta-kvetching."  "Yenta-kvetching?  You've just invented a new Yiddish term."  "No making fun of the teacher."  "I better go home then," I said.  "You can stay," he said.  So I did.