Algorithms & Influences: A Conversation Over Cup 26

This conversation was inspired by a FB “Similar to Posts You’ve Interacted With” article suggestion in Missie’s news feed that prompted her to make a FB post about our Junior High Gym teacher. You never know who is going to put the kettle on (or in the case of our guest, who will be pouring the chocolate milk)…

The above is the article that inspired our asking Missie to post for us as well as the conversation that led to the post…

Welcome Missie …

I like to think that I have always been a dancer but I didn’t make it official until I was 5 years old and started taking lessons in ballet, tap and jazz. I wanted to be one of the kids on Fame. Still do, truth be told. I am, and always have been, amazed by the magic that happens when movement and music come together.

I was one of the youngest in my dance class and had to work quite hard to keep up. I didn’t play “real sports” on “real teams” just lunch hour/recess intramural sports and what was included in our physical education curriculum. I was a strong dancer but I was a tiny lil’ bit of a thing. I started teaching at twelve. Every Saturday, I taught all morning through to having my own classes in the early evening. I may have been a tiny lil’ thing, yes, but made of kinetic energy.

My first year teaching, I taught my junior high gym teacher’s daughters. He wanted to start a girl’s volleyball team at our school and asked me to try out. I laughed convinced he was kidding. I was the kid you asked to try out for drama, participate in the spelling bees, or play Reach for the Top. I wasn’t an athlete. I was a dancer.

I was wrong. It took a while for me to figure it out, but Mr. Chris seemed to know right away. Hindsight being 20/20, I must have looked like a pile of ridiculous that afternoon, extolling my non-athleticism, sweaty from teaching tap after my umpteenth hour of dance for the day. I made the team. I did not yet appreciate that the legs that aspired to make ballet look effortless were capable of just about anything.

Mr. Chris convinced me that I was strong by giving me chances to be strong. He never treated my small stature as a problem but rather a challenge. When everyone else on the volleyball team was learning how to serve overhand, I was learning how to serve side arm just like the smallest gal on the Chinese Olympic team. He taught me that pirouettes and grand jetes are just as impressive as slam dunks and volleyball spikes. He didn’t point out that I was quick and super coordinated, he just gave me opportunities to prove it.

By the time he asked me to try out for the badminton team, I didn’t laugh. I didn’t make it, but I didn’t think twice about giving it a shot. I got it by then. We are all using the same muscles to make our magic happen. I was an athlete. Mr. Chris didn’t make me one. He knew I was one the whole time.