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When I was in the ninth grade, I taught myself how to dance—

In secret.

I’d never really been the daring type, but I had become inspired. Early that year, when it became apparent that I had no real taste in music, I set off on an expedition to find songs I actually liked. The right genre for me was quickly discovered: dubstep. Ah, yes, a strong bassline, powerful drops, and, often, few lyrics. What more could you want in a song? Little Josh, at least, was satisfied. Note for clarity: dubstep is not the same as club music, which blends every song together, typically with an endlessly thumping bass. No, the music I liked had a little more substance.

It just so happens that this kind of music attracts a very distinct type of dancing. On multiple occasions, I stumbled upon some unbelievable videos of dancers waving, tutting, popping, breakdancing, and executing highly-advanced versions of the 'robot.' It didn’t take long for my feed to fill with these videos. I became completely enthralled. Mostly, I kept the obsession to myself, but there were moments when I couldn't not show my friends. As I remember, they would usually nod in acknowledgement and then return to their business, generally uninterested. But it didn’t matter what they thought, or what anyone thought. Dance—dubstep dance—was my new passion. And it was only a matter of time before a simple thought occurred to me:

I could do that.

So when the time for next year’s course selection came, it seemed obvious what I had to do. Amid the backdrop of my quiet, fourteen-year-old life, I made a decision that would change that life forever. With huge excitement, I selected dance as an elective, declaring privately that, starting now and continuing until the class started, I would teach myself how to pop-and-lock.

It was quite the undertaking. For months, I watched tutorials on YouTube and studied the moves of all my favourite dancers. At night, after everyone in my household had gone to bed, I would stand in front of the big glass patio doors and practice; it was the best mirror I had. All through the summer, I danced my heart out. When we travelled to Collingwood for a few days’ stay, I put headphones on and danced in the other room of the suite. And when my siblings and I went for our yearly camping trip with the cousins, I practiced footwork every moment that no one was looking. The dance course was in the second semester of the year, which means that after the summer I had five more months to prepare.

Much later, I would look back and wonder why it all had to be in secret. I had no particular reason to hide this huge part of my life, but I see now that, regardless of my motive, sometimes not telling other people what you’re doing can be very beneficial, because there is no one to tell you that you can’t.

Finally, winter came and I was ready. On the first day of the new semester, I walked upstairs and entered the dance room, nervous but excited. One thing was certain: I was the only boy in a class of girls. In fact, I was the only boy in the entire school enrolled in dance that year. I had known this would likely be the case, but now, fully realizing it, I felt intimidated. It took me several days to get used to my new situation. For a whole week I would simply sit with the couple of friends I had in the class and ponder how I might bring to everyone’s attention that I had been training for this for a full twelve months.

The dance room was usually open during lunch. One day, after having walked past the door at least a hundred times, I forced myself through and walked to the wood floor. There were about ten girls in the room, all minding their own business. I proceeded to connect my phone to the large speaker. With my heart already breakdancing in my chest, I hit play on a song called ‘Barbara Windsor’ by Hot Cakes (don’t ask me about the name, it just had a sick beat). Now in position, I raised my arms, the song coming to life. This was it: a year of work, about to pay off.

BOOM. My body flexed all its muscles in sync with the first hit of the bass. All of the girls looked up at me, obviously startled. My torso rotated now, hinging at the hips: the robot. My muscles popped again on the next sound of the bass. A wave passed through me. I felt the energy. The passion. The fear. Footwork came naturally. A spin or two. Everyone watched. And the whole thing was over before I knew it.

I felt relief. Joy. A couple of the girls applauded me. One of them, whom I happened to have a massive crush on (let’s call her Stella), came up to me with wide eyes. She asked me, “Have you ever shown that to anyone?” No, I said. Then she just smiled and walked off. I would later date this girl for a total of five months, but in that time I never find out how she had known to ask that.

Following the exciting events that took place that lunch hour, the girls who were present requested that I show the rest of the class what I could do. So just a while later, in third period, I did:

It just so happened that our dance teacher was away that period, so the next day the girls asked me to show her, too.

Finally, my secret was out. I was a dancer. I was free.

I was also in quite the position. You might imagine that a teenage boy like myself would have no complaints about sharing a class with all girls. Indeed it had its perks, and the semester sure went off with a bang, but the months ahead were going to be tough. There’s a little something I like to call anxiety that often kept me from enjoying myself in the dance room. Still a young boy trying to figure things out, insecurity lingered. I found it difficult to converse with the girls, save for my few friends. And let’s face it, I was the odd one out.

My fourth period class, Introduction to Anthropology, Sociology, and Psychology, was a split class, meaning we shared a space with the big, scary grade-elevens. It was here that my quiet demeanor was reinforced, as talking to the upper-years was simply not something I was capable of doing at the time. Unfortunately, I also had no friends in my other two classes. A lot of times, it ended up being easier to just put in headphones and hang by myself, so that’s what I did for most of the semester, all the while accepting my place as the quiet kid who seldom spoke. There was a big discrepancy between who I felt I was on the inside, and how I behaved on the outside.

At least I had my music to comfort me. Songs that I had now been listening to for over a year would be on repeat throughout the day. The following tracks, specifically, were a crucial part of my routine:

Wizard - Float

Outkast - Ms. Jackson (San Holo Remix)

Joey Bada$$ - Devastated (MVMMALS Remix)

In case you’re wondering, yes, I did listen to a lot of remixes. They’re the name of the game!

The semester was lonely, but there was one upcoming event that took the pain away: the school’s annual dance show. Everyone enrolled in dance was required to participate. Some of the girls dreaded this. I, personally, couldn’t have been more thrilled. My high school had not seen dubstep dancing before—which I had known for a long time—and this, paired with the fact that I was the only boy, was able to secure me a solo performance in the show. (Bless my dance teacher.) I got to work, preparing the perfect choreography, largely inspired by one of the most viewed dances on YouTube, Fik-Shun’s WOD performance to ‘Chain Hang Low’ by Jibbs (the Crizzly & AFK remix). It’s still the craziest dance I’ve ever seen. Do look it up.

Every year, the schedule was as follows: two days and four shows, the first presented to elementary school kids, the second offered in the evening for parents, the third a ‘buy-out’ for the high school students, and a final evening show for anyone who was unable to come the first night, or anyone who just had to come see it a second time. As we saw it, the elementary show acted as a buffer, a chance to work out any remaining performance kinks in the presence of a less… mindful audience. The other shows, however, were much more nerve-racking.

The dance show came in June and, as expected, everyone got more anxious for the first evening performance. Nevertheless, everything went smoothly, and afterward there was an army of parents waiting to congratulate their kids. Mine, too, congratulated me, though with some degree of shock on their faces. It turns out I hadn’t revealed my secret to everyone. Not until I was up on stage presenting my solo in full swing did my parents discover what I had been up to the past year and a half.

Then came the buy-out, and all of the dancers, including me, lost their minds. This was high school: everyone cared what everyone else thought. We all scrambled to get organized before the show, setting aside costumes, going over the more difficult moves, and just generally trying to keep the panic at bay. Soon, the curtain was drawn and the show started. We ran through the dances, one by one, my solo rapidly approaching. I practiced in the dance room, rehearsing and saying every positive affirmation I could come up with, until the very last moment.

It was dark on the stage. My heart pounded. But when the spotlights rose and the crowd cheered louder than I had ever heard, all fear melted away. My scattered thoughts dissipated, too. I no longer had to think. I simply did what I knew: I danced:

If there’s one thing I learned that day, it’s that high school students really like dubstep dancing. Honestly, who couldn't? Later, the bright red article I was wearing on stage would become known to my friends and I as the jacket.

After the buy-out, once all of the students had returned to class, the dancers followed suit, and I proceeded to my fourth period. When I walked in, a peculiar thing happened. Everyone looked at me—and clapped. Then one of the bigger, funnier guys got up and hugged me in front of everyone, making sure to congratulate me on how awesome I was. It was quite the scene. I knew how it appeared: the shy boy at the back of class had become a schoolwide hip-hop sensation in a matter of moments. This thought entertained me, but I was mostly happy that everyone truly knew what I could do. My secret was truly no longer a secret.

Of course, the fame didn’t last. It seemed only about fifteen minutes later everyone had forgotten about the whole thing, and all of my classes quickly returned to how they once were, my usual self observing quietly from the corner. But it was okay. Soon the year was over, and I had big plans: dance was already my first-choice elective for grade eleven.

The summer passed and the next year came. I dated Stella for a time. Thought I knew true love. Turns out I didn’t. All the while, I was finding new songs to dance to. Flux Pavilion, TroyBoi, and Two Feet became my favourite artists. My liked songs on Youtube were exclusive to those uploaded by Trap Nation and Cloudkid, two music promoters known for all things trap, dubstep, electronic, and indie. In all this time, nothing else is worth mentioning. The real fun picked back up with the resurgence of dance class.

I was now in term two of grade eleven. My dance teacher informed me early on in the semester that another male student, Mustafa, had approached her in hopes of participating in the show this year. He had always wanted to join dance, she said, but, being the only boy, he had decided against it. Seeing me up on stage last year had got him thinking. Furthermore, a new grade-nine student by the name of ‘LJ’ had joined the course, and was the talk of all the younger girls. So curious was the fact that both Mustafa and LJ had previous experience in exactly the style of dance that I enjoyed. Plans were set immediately for an assembly. A boys’ trio in the dance show? A force to be reckoned with, surely.

And let me tell you, we freaking killed it.

For the rest of that year and throughout the next, there were moments, as usual, which had me down-and-out, struggling again to fit in. But this time around I had Mustafa and LJ at my side. Mustafa, though a year older than me and now on a victory lap, was even able to be in the same class as me in my final year. Needless to say, this split class was much better than the last.

So the dancing went on, better and more electrifying than ever. As part of the dance curriculum (yes, such a thing exists), we designed a musical theatre performance to Grease, which, in my opinion, was nothing short of spectacular. My friends and I had our last dance show, which we named ‘Iconic' (although I always thought the slightly shorter 'Icon' had a certain artistic quality, which no one else agreed with). I even started exploring other styles of dance, including jazz and contemporary. I choreographed my grade eleven exam dance to a powerful song by R.O called Get Home, which had me experimenting with all sorts of new things; spins, breakdance, tumbling, you name it.

Yes, there had been challenging times, but every painful moment, it seemed, was replaced by a new memory. I no longer ruminated on that time from grade ten when, after my first show, a pre-relationship Stella asked me for a picture and, mistaken, I got up from my little corner only to be handed the camera. Instead, I reminisced on the epic moment that Mustafa and I danced to Icon by Jaden Smith:

And rather than relive the awkward moment in which I got paired with a post-relationship Stella for a Zumba-inspired dance and had to speak up to ask for new partners, I remember the night I performed a hilarious, cursed country dance with my good friend, Immy, and my sister, Kylie:

The truth is, all of those times when I felt lonely, isolated, and even depressed were worth it for the moment when Mustafa and I got to explore our feminine side in front of the entire school:

I can positively say that my time spent on stage and in the dance room comprises the best experience of my high school years. Nowhere else in my entire life have I had so much fun. Dance even helped me out of my shell. My teacher assured me that, each year, a little bit of self-doubt melted away. It's true; every moment, both challenging and fun, grew me. By the time I had three dance shows under my belt, I was brave enough to present my overconfident, insane asylum-themed dance to Billie Eilish’s ‘Copycat’ for the grade-twelve final exam. Although this might not be the most common measure of courage, to me it was a historic moment.

If it had not been for my joining dance, I cannot imagine what the present would hold. For one, I wouldn't be able to dance around in grocery stores the way I love to do now. Of course, the beginning actually goes farther back than the decision to join dance class. Had I not discovered the incredible electronic music that inspired me so long ago, I would not have become a dancer at all, and I would surely not be who I am today.

This will always be remembered as the story of how my small, shy, teenage self became a “famous” hip-hop dancer in high school. More importantly, it stands, to me at least, as proof that you really can do anything you want. Dreams are possible.

Follow your passions (in secret, if you want). I did, and it worked out great. It never even went to my head.

Bonus Content:

And this.