Jump Jam

Master (toothless) Six came home one night last week and gave me a demo of some hip-hop dancing they’d been learning at school.

“Oh I know that song,” I said jumping up and copying his moves to Funky Town.

“No, that’s not how it goes,” he said before re-performing the routine whilst innocently singing “Won’t you take me to f*cken town.”

Oh dear, I wonder how many other kids got that one wrong.

The dance routine, it turned out, was for their Jumpjamathon school fundraiser on Wednesday. It was a combination of Master Six never disclosing anything about his day and me not reading the school newsletter properly which lead me to believe it was a skipping jumpathon like last year’s fundraiser.

“But how are you going to perform a dance with your skipping ropes?” I asked visualising a tangle of limbs tripping over each other and their ropes.

He didn’t bother answering me, which isn’t anything out of the ordinary so I went on believing it was a combination of skipping and a jumbled up dance routine and sponsored him nonetheless.

I also inadvertently found out the day before it was a dress up day. “Oh yes, he’s coming as Spider Man,” the teacher informed me.

I could only blame myself for my ignorance - I’d had a hectic week and, after I dug out the newsletter, there it all was in black and white. But anyway, it seemed Master Six had it all under control.

The event coincided with bookweek and the kids were to parade their storybook character costumes before taking part in the Jumpjamathon later that morning followed by a sausage sizzle.

Wednesday is my day off, sans kids, and I fill it to the brim but I felt a twinge of guilt at my distraction from this special day and, besides, watching dancing was a whole lot more fun than watching kids trip over their skipping ropes. I dropped my plans and turned the car round and headed back out to the school. Arriving at the gates, my nana – Master Six’s great-grandmother drove past so I flagged her down and she joined me for this impromptu morning of entertainment.

We were glad we went. It was high-excitement inside the school grounds. Snow Whites, fairies, pirates, Pippi longstockings, Karate Kids, Little Red Riding Hoods and copious Spider Man’s buzzed around. Finally one emerged from the crowd with thinly-disguised delight at seeing us.

The Jumpjamathon began and all the story characters came to life as an array of colour moved as one … well sort of … some were more co-ordinated than others.

Jumpjam is like aerobics (Jim), but not as we know it. Each class took turns at leading the school through a routine to songs such as Stop Drop and Roll, Blame it on the Boogie and, of course, Funky Town.
”Bet this isn’t the type of music you and Poppa danced to back in the day,” I leaned over and said to nana as Who Let the Dogs Out blared out over the masses.

“No, it certainly wasn’t,” she laughed.

Master Six is a sly one. As he doesn’t share anything I was equally unaware of just how good a dancer he is. Watching the effort and joy the dancing brought and with his rugby career days looking like they’re numbered, much to his dad’s dismay, I renewed my vow to enrol him in hip-hop classes.

As for the Funky Town number, try as I did to watch their mouths, it proved impossible to lip-read what they were singing but I did notice some, perhaps bewildered, kids omitting that “F” word completely.