the times Saturday August 1 20208Weekend
C
o-ordination has never
really been my thing.
Getting my brain, arms and
legs to talk to one another is
a challenge at the best of
times. It’s why I can easily
fall up the stairs. Or trip
between the platform and the train. And
it’s why I can’t dance.
The last has never really posed a huge
problem — I just look a bit offbeat in night-
clubs — but today it’s a different story.
It’s broad daylight, everyone is sober and
I’m having a dance lesson from Kimberly
Wyatt, star of the Pussycat Dolls. No pres-
sure then.
“You’ll be fine,” Wyatt says in her chirpy
American accent. I’m not so sure. “You are
dealing here with someone who can mess
up the routine on a Joe Wicks PE class
designed for schoolchildren,” I warn her.
Wyatt is one of the first “creators” on a
new digital workout platform, Move
Home Studio, which Kane Daniel Ricca,
the founder, says he hopes will grow
to become the “Netflix for fitness”. TheShake it up My dance class with a
Online dance lessons are booming.
But would Ben Clatworthy
prove too much of a challenge
for his celebrity teacher?
website, which works on a subscription or
pay-as-you go model, was created in
72 hours at the start of lockdown, when
Ricca, a tap dancer by trade, realised that
coronavirus had created a perfect storm.
“Loads and loads of dancers and fitness
instructors were suddenly without any
work,” he says. “At the same time everyone
was stuck at home, and gyms, fitness and
dance studios were all closed.”
The result was that online fitness classes
soared in popularity, with people working
out in their kitchens, bedrooms and living
rooms — and dance classes, in particular,
have been a huge hit.
Which brings me to Wyatt’s studio at
her home in Surrey, which she shares with
her husband, Max Rogers, and their three
children, Willow, five, Maple, two, and
Ford Senna, eight months. We kick off
slowly, with some easy ballet moves.
“Relevé on to your toes, Ben,” Wyatt
shouts over Harry Styles’s Watermelon
Sugar (“it’s our family summer anthem”).
“Good. And plié, feet out, heels firmly on
the ground, bend the knees. And again. Up
you go, stay strong.”
The next moment, to Dua Lipa’s Hotter
than Hell, we’re doing some head-and-
shoulder rolls followed by some side-to-
side hip motions. Wyatt, even under the
unflattering studio lights, makes these
simple moves look effortlessly sexy, in a
Pussycat Dolls kind of way. I just look un-
gainly and out of time.
Probably the worst appraisal of mydancing ability came from an ex-girlfriend
who, on a night out in Spain with friends,
danced about 4m away from me, embar-
rassed by my total lack of ability.
“You can do it,” Wyatt shouts as she
bounces about the studio, waving her
arms and barely breaking into a sweat.
Normally in a dance class you would face
the instructor to copy their moves, but
today — for pandemic-related reasons —
that’s off. Good news, in part, because she
can’t see me messing it up as easily; bad
because I struggle more to know what on
earth I’m supposed to be doing.
I do better with my “Matt Mattox” arm
isolations (a more complicated version of
“big fish, little fish”), inspired by the
famous Hollywood dancer. I follow along
well until, on the beat of the music, Wyatt
shouts, “Double time,” and it all goes to
pot. I break down laughing at myself. At
least I’m having fun.
The “Janet Jackson” fast-feet scissor
move passes in an uncoordinated blur, and
before my brain has caught up, Wyatt is
shouting to progress to the “bend and
scoop” — an unflattering action, as if
you’re picking something up off the
ground. I catch a glimpse of myself in the
mirror and can’t help thinking I look like
an appalling am-dram actor doing an
impression of an ape.
Pilates, she says, would help me as I
almost fall over again. It was by following
a strict regimen led by her husband, a
qualified Pilates coach (who also hassessions on the website), that about seven
weeks after having Ford Senna by caesare-
an section last year, Wyatt was able to
bound on to the stage of the X Factor final
for the Pussycat Dolls’ first reunion per-
formance in almost a decade. Later, I
watch the video in awe.
“So much about dance is to do with your
core and your feet,” Wyatt says. “The
trouble is we never really give them the
attention they deserve. In so many sports
you just shove them into a pair of shoes
and forget about them. In dance it’s
all about moving through your relevés
and understanding how your whole
body works.”
We tackle a few more moves, but I’m
struggling to picture how all the elements
would fit together to make a routine.
“These are drills,” Wyatt says. “The chore-
ography comes next.”Co-ordination
isn’t really my
thing. It’s why
I can easily fall
up stairs and
I can’t dance
The
snake-hip
flex
The
disco
relevé
the timesSaturday August 1 20 20