How hip hop helped my child find his groove
Imagine. You’re seven years old. You love music and can’t keep your feet still when you hear a song you like.
Beats sound in your brain, your fingers tap and feet shuffle. You’ve spent your whole life grooving — at home, in the car, supermarket, wherever you can. You’d like to learn more, feel more confident, share your passion with other kids….. but you’re a boy and you don’t know how.
Your sisters take dance lessons, they’ve learned ballet, tap and jazz since they were three years old. Your mum says you can join them but you’re not so sure. You don’t think you’ll feel comfortable in a room of pink leotards and Disney songs. You love dancing with them at home, copying their moves, learning step-ball-changes and other steps that intrigue you. But being the only boy in a room full of girls just doesn’t feel right.
You’d like to be brave, to not care what people will think… but you do care and you don’t know how to change that.
This was my son.
He enjoyed basketball, gymnastics and swimming lessons. No stranger to hard work, as much as he desperately wanted to learn to dance, he simply didn’t feel he could join what he saw as a ‘regular’ dance class full of girls. His dad and I encouraged him, but the idea…
