Getting the Line on the Electric Slide

It looks so easy from the safety of a bar stool: lines of men and women of all ages smoothly executing moves to the music of Hank Williams Jr.

After years of visiting clubs all over the country, I had decided to defy my well-earned reputation as a klutz.

When I arrived at Denim & Diamonds for my first lesson, I reviewed my slim qualifications. I could tell Randy Travis from Travis Tritt, and I knew how to execute a Texas two-step if there were no other distractions, like fast music. My partner was a woman friend accomplished in jazz, ballet and aerobics who had gone to summer camp with Paula Abdul--and had met Garth Brooks backstage in Las Vegas.

We started with the electric slide, a line dance that had always looked easy. The instructor, a bespectacled fellow named Bill Granoff, was friendly and enthusiastic. Bill warned us about bumping into the posts, popped “Livin’ on Tulsa Time” into the tape player, and we were off.

Move to the right, then to the left. Then forward, then back. Turn, turn, turn. Do it again.

After our fourth rehearsal, all I could remember was move to the left, move to the right. Sweat stains were popping out on my shirt. All around me, neophyte dancers were moving like they had been born electric sliding down the delivery table.

The footwork was a snap compared to the sound effects. At one point in the electric slide, the women were expected to grunt--”Uh! Uhh!”--like a bunch of middle-aged executives on a Robert Bly weekend. After some embarrassed grumbling, everyone responded gamely, if without enthusiasm.

I went to my right. I went to my left. I went forward. I went back.

I smashed into a post.

“Uh! Uhh!” I grunted, with real conviction. The second dance was easier. It was the Texas two-step, which I can navigate successfully as long as I’m permitted to mumble aloud, “Slow-slow-fast-fast.” But Bill wanted us to turn and twirl and promenade and change partners--all at the very same time we were going slow-slow-fast-fast.

“Hi, I’m Brenda,” said my first partner, who helped me navigate for the first five minutes. (My tennis shoes must have tipped Brenda off to the fact that I was a charity case.)

After the second lesson, I was grateful to accept a beer and sit down. My feet hurt, but I’d had fun. I had met several people, I hadn’t committed any truly serious podiatric damage to any of them and I’d managed to stay upright for 45 minutes. Most important, my fellow dancers had been friendly and supportive--something I can’t say about the dance-floor denizens of L.A.’s rock clubs.