How do you say...

..."Oh my God, my calves are on fire?" in Hawaiian?

"Uwehe."

Okay, that's not a literal translation. It's the name of one of the new steps we learned in hula class this week, and OH. MY. GOD.

Let me see if I can describe it to you, so that you can fully appreciate what we did. You start in that sort of squatting position I referred to last week (it's called "ha'a") -- it's like a plie, only your feet aren't turned out as much and your knees go straight, and NOT over your feet.

Then you lift one foot, slightly, put it down, then pop your knees out. Repeat on the other side. Don't come out of ha'a. And oh, yeah, don't forget about your hips, which are supposed to move in opposition to your feet.

And when you do it over and over and and over and over over again, in combination with the other step you do in ha'a (that's called "hela")...HOLY SHIT. I thought my calves were going to explode at one point, and I was, again, soaking wet by the end of class.

But I'm loving it. I can't quite describe the feeling I get when I've mastered a step in any style of dance, when it becomes part of my muscle memory, and I can just do it and make it mine without any real thought. I'm nowhere near that yet with anything we've learned, but I love the process. I love moving to music, even though all we're dancing to right now is the ipu heke (it's a double gourd that's used as percussion). And even that is really cool.
(And thank you, Rebecca, for spelling out all these words for our own little glossary!)

I'm so glad we're taking this class. I don't even care that I'm tired on Friday. I'm tired on Fridays no matter what, and this is a really good reason to be tired.

And last night, I ran into a woman in class I knew 100 million years ago in San Diego! I haven't seen her in, I think, 21 years. Wild that she recognized me, even though she didn't remember at first how we knew each other. Small world.

Happy Friday!