My entire life, dancing was a requirement I never signed up for. At my over-crowded Iranian family gatherings — or mehmoonies — you could find me hitting the Bandari with my aunts, or learning to snap the Beshkan with the cousins. After dinner but always before dessert, the auxiliary cord could be heard crackling as an uncle plugged the JBL into an ancient iPod touch. As soon as the speaker was connected and the queue was lined up with a hodge-podge of Benyamin and Pitbull, Shakira and Arash, all of us kids could expect to be dragged into a circle of dancing relatives stomping to a hurricane of familiar music.
On the first day of class, as I watched myself freeze-pose in the floor-to-ceiling mirror of Studio 101, I wondered how I managed to end up in a Sunday night breakdancing class my first semester at Pomona College. As my instructor yelled “Three-and-four-and kick to pretzel!”, my childhood mehmoonies felt like a distant memory. I wouldn’t consider myself a bad dancer, (Paint Party aside) but I couldn’t help but feel out of place here. “Why did I sign up for this again?”
After agonizing over the rest of my schedule, when it came time to register for PE classes, I just wanted to get my requirements over with — maybe a yoga class, maybe some jogging or even a little pickleball. Instead, I now find myself kick-ball-chain-ing to Justin Timberlake alongside 30 other students, all with different levels of experience under their belts.
Students at the 5Cs have well over 100 different physical education classes available to them, along with an excess of extra curricular options. So for those of us looking for something to do after class, why spend an evening trying something new like breakdancing, archery or acapella when you could be engaging with a skill you’re already confident in?
We’re obsessed with filling our schedules with activities that present as productive and sound practical: lift to get stronger, run to get faster. For me, breakdancing has been the antidote to my efficiency complex — it’s messy, social, awkward and unpredictable. That’s exactly why I need it so badly. It reminds me to be present, to embrace imperfection and to find joy in the act of engaging with something without really being sure what I’m doing or how well I’m doing it. Dance class has forced me to connect with new people all across the 5Cs. Most importantly though, it’s forced me to fail (and fail publicly).
What started as a box to check off my general education requirements quickly turned into the best stress relief I could have asked for, along with being the highlight of my week. Even when I’m at least a beat behind or getting distracted when I accidentally catch my reflection mid-windmill, I’ve found myself enjoying the process of genuinely struggling through something I’m objectively not good at. It feels like the first time in a while I’ve voluntarily done something I’m completely, unapologetically “bad” at — and that feels kind of freeing.
Honestly, that’s something every 5C student could use a little more of. In a world where we’re constantly working to be measurable, productive and “impressive,” engaging in something new and unfamiliar gives us permission to just exist. And that’s a hard thing for us to let ourselves do.
After our usual end-of-class round of fistbumps, I told the instructor that this was the first dance class I had ever taken, and he smiled. “I believe we were all created to move,” said breakdancing and hip-hop instructor Don Sevilla. “In that case, everyone is a dancer, in my opinion.”
He calls dancers “God’s athletes,” not just because dancing often demands strength and flexibility, but because movement itself is a fundamental part of being human, no matter the culture or time period. And while I’m not sure if I can claim to be one of “God’s athletes” just yet, I’m sure I’ll feel like a real B-Girl once Professor Sevilla teaches us how to spin on our heads to the rhythms of Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock.
This mentality doesn’t just apply to dance though, sign up for your own version of break dancing. Find something that feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable and completely outside your comfort zone. Whatever it might be, commit to it fully, and commit to being bad at it. Let yourself try something you won’t get graded on, won’t list on a resume and potentially never master. And try to be okay with that.
“ Let yourself try something you won’t get graded on, won’t list on a resume and potentially never master. And try to be okay with that. ”
It could be anything. Join an improv group even if public speaking terrifies you. Pick up pottery despite your total lack of artistic experience and dexterity. Audition for an acapella group when you’ve only ever sung in showers. Let it be the way you rediscover the joy of learning for its own sake. Did I think I’d be practicing my freeze pose in the mirror instead of finishing the Spanish homework I’d been putting off all weekend? Definitely not. Am I now able to do a six-step into a Zulu Spin? Kind of, and I’m cool with that.
So, when spring registration time rolls around, consider filling your evenings with something completely unpredictable and unusual — try taking something that will make you laugh, stumble over your own feet and possibly even fall flat on your face. It’s about diving headfirst into something new, embracing the discomfort of it all and discovering that being terrible at something can be unexpectedly fun — potentially even a little addictive. Either way, you can find me in Studio 101 trying my hand at the Bachata in “Dance – Latin Night Club” come January.
Leili Kamali PO ’29 is a novice B-Girl workshopping her freestyle breakdancing skills every Sunday at Robert’s Pavillion. She hopes to learn to do a headspin by the end of term.
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