Taking hula lessons in complete anonymity

Graceful. No, that doesn’t describe me at all.

Even still, I recently chose to learn to hula (Hula ‘Auana, the modern form practiced during the past two hundred years).

While taking Hawaiian art classes, my instructor June convinced me to try her hula classes. Hula is first and foremost a form of storytelling. Well, who can resist a good story?

Given all the fascinating information June shared during art class, I was curious to experience hula. Her classes were free, so I had nothing to lose, other than an ounce or two of pride. (Flashback to the early 2000s, when a ballroom dance teacher told my husband to take me home to show me how to move my hips.)

Lucky for me, June’s hula classes involved a group of mostly uncoordinated strangers gathering midday in the ship’s theatre. I attended two classes and watched a third, but begged off well before the participants geared up for a graduation ceremony and public performance in front of all the other cruise passengers.

Thanks to June’s patience and the safety of instruction in a sea of strangers, I hula danced the Hukilau. To avoid colliding with anyone and to hide my jiggly bits from everyone, I danced in the back row.

There, cloaked in anonymity, I danced to the ukulele music and followed June’s instructions. I’ll never be asked to sway my hips at a luau, but I enjoyed learning to hula.

Getting to dance the hula without knowing the witnesses of my not-so-fluid moves was

     ‘E’EHIA!!!  (Hawaiian slang for awesome)

Here's a YouTube video of Hawaiian children dancing the Hukilau.

If you want to try it on your own, you can also check out the HulaDanceHQ for a video of grown-up dancers and descriptive text below to guide you through the moves.