That Time I Was in Huffpo For a Second

That Time I Was in Huffpo For a Second

It is difficult not being the stereotype.  Or the one that just follows along with what society expects you to be.  You just can’t do it, or they’ll burn you.  I’m a tall, white, overweight guy.  I’m not supposed to be able to be coordinated or dance.  Certainly, I should not be able to twerk.

According to the article in question (which has at the advice of various lawyers, been pulled down) a white guy doing something black ladies made popular is cultural appropriation.

I am writing this well after the controversy, and well after twerking fell out of the mainstream.  This blog is sort of in response to an article that was forwarded to me by a friend.  I never read the site, since I lean to a more conservative bent.  I was never interviewed, nor even contacted for the article, so that kind of goes along with how the left works.

For those of you who don’t know, twerking is essentially the vigorous and rhythmic shaking of one’s booty.  It is artistic butt shaking.  I saw a joke about it on Twitter (which at this point is actually less popular than twerking) and watched a couple videos.  Then I tried to do it myself.

At first, it kind of hurt a little bit to do, but it was also kind of fun.  Of course, I looked absolutely ridiculous.  To some, I looked absolutely ridiculous during my entire career of twerking.  I didn’t care, though.  I had the rhythm, and the attitude required to do it.

At my “prime”, or the very top of my twerking game, I was practicing at least four hours a day.  On days off of work, it was closer to 16.  This is while I was married, and work days were 12 hours, so my schedule was impossible.  A lot of my practice time was while I was on break at work.  I work in a factory, so you can only imagine the taunting and jokes that were flying around the shop floor.  In the end (pun intended), I earned their respect.

While I was at the mall one afternoon, a flyer caught my eye.  It was a local twerking competition that would be the initial round in the region for the World Twerking Championship.  The winner of the competition would then be allowed to compete at the state tournament in Indianapolis.  According to the website, the winner of the state tournament would go on to Los Angeles for the US/ World finals.  I decided to enter.

One cold and blustery morning, I drove up to the baseball field in South Bend to see if my twerking skills were all that I thought they were.  There were easily a thousand other people there, of which I was not the only guy, but definitely the only white guy.  We were all counted out into groups of 50.  Each group would then go out onto the field, a song would start, and everyone would start twerking.  A group of judges walked through the group and would tap the shoulder of whoever was getting eliminated.

My group was the fourth one out onto the field.  The first song started, and I did my thing, shaking my butt in various creative ways.  All around me were other hopefuls, all of us believing ourselves to be the best.  At the end of the first song, probably half of the group had already been eliminated, but I was still there.  The second song started, and now it was much easier to see who was judging, and who was being judged.  Half way through the song, I could see two of the judges standing next to each other, watching me.  I didn’t let it phase me, and after a few moments they moved on.  By the end of the song, I was still in the competition as one of the top five in my group.

Believe me when I say that there were a lot of people absolutely shocked at this.

Round two was three hours later.  There were only two groups of fifty remaining.  It was the top fives of all the first round groups of fifty.  This time, there would be three songs, and at the end there could only be three people per group.  Those six people would move on to the state competition, but the overall winner would be the team captain and have more responsibility.  At the end of the first song, several people had been eliminated, but I was still out there twerking.  The second song started and during the chorus, I got a tap on my shoulder.  It was like I was awakened from a trance, and I walked off the field dejected.  Towards the end of the song, an argument erupted between several of the judges and a few of the other twerkers.  They didn’t start the third song, but at the end of the argument, one of the judges walked over to me and told me to get back in and continue.  They had reversed the decision of the judge, and I had one more song to prove myself.  If I made even the slightest error, I would be out.

The third song started and I twerked my heart out, doing the most physical, artistic, and emotional twerking performance ever done to a Puff Daddy song.  The song started with ten people, but by the end, I was one of the final three.   I was a finalist, and would represent north western Indiana at the state competition in Indianapolis.  Once the other group finished their eliminations, we would have a twerk off.  One person would do a short performance, and the other person would have to match that, then add more.  The first person would then have to start from the beginning, match what was added, and add more.  This would go on until someone made an error, and the other person would win.  The final three would then do a three way version of this until two of the three were eliminated.

To speed up the story a bit, I won.  There were 999 other people, but I was the winner of the north west Indiana twerking competition.  Eight weeks later, the six of us piled into the GMC I had at the time, and went to Indianapolis for the state tournament.

The state competition was a much different affair.  There were only thirty competitors at this event, and the rules were much different.  The first round would essentially be self elimination because it was based around endurance.  The last five (literally) standing would make it to the nationals, and the second round would determine the team leader.  As before, the team leader would also get $1,000.

The first round was one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  We would go an hour, then be given a five minute break, then back to twerking.  In all, the first round lasted about seven hours and ended with two fitness instructors, a marathon runner, a professional dancer, and me.

The second round was identical to the second round of the last competition, and to speed things up, had the same results.  I was the overall winner going to the nationals in Los Angeles.

This was the big time.  I made it to the nationals as the leader for Team Indiana, or as we were known, Vanilla Swirl.  There were,once again, a few other guys, and a very, very pale red headed lady.  She and I were the only pale people there, including the crowd.  The whole thing was being filmed by BET.  I have never seen the show, since I was in it, and I don’t have that channel.  It would be cool to see, though.

When I won the state finals, I got a call from a representative of Larry the Cable Guy.  She offered to fly my team to the nationals on Mr. The Cable Guy’s private plane.  I accepted, but the other four on my team declined the offer.  They were uncomfortable flying on a plane with a confederate flag, I guess.

This was a two day affair.  Day one started promptly at 6am, and would be an elimination similar to the state competition.  We would twerk for an hour, get a five minute break, then continue twerking.  You either eliminated yourself by getting too tired, or a judge would tap you on the shoulder because your twerking got too weak.  It was not a matter of form, because everyone had already gotten this far, it was 100% stamina.  250 would start, with the final ten making the finals the next day.

I have never shaken my booty harder or longer in my entire life.  This was the cream of the crop for the entire world!  Well, the world inside the United States.  Mostly black people, but it was the world finals!  I shook, I danced, I got jiggy with it, and whatever other similes you want to come up with.  By around 5pm, it was down to the final ten, and I was in.

I spent the rest of the evening in the hot tub of the hotel they put us up in.  If you want to get a lot of strange looks from people, sit in a hot tub with nine athletic black women in their 20's and 30's.

The next day, we were split into two groups of five.  Round one would be a twerk off where one would start and the next would have to follow with the same routine, then add to it.  Miss a step and you were eliminated.  To once again speed up this blog a bit, I won.  Arsenio Hall, the MC of the whole thing, seemed rather shocked when he came up and shook my hand and told me I was in the final two.  The other final finalist was a nice black lady from Atlanta who was a fitness instructor/ dance instructor.  I can’t imagine anyone was particularly happy with me making it this far, but no one said anything negative to me about it.  I think BET was hoping to show a lot of footage of fit ladies shaking their booty, but they ended up with me in the finals.  It wasn’t as if they could deny my skills.

The final round was similar to the last round, except it was just the two of us.  Cameras were rolling and I started the dance.  People in the crowd were yelling, trying to break my concentration as I went, only to be quiet when Shaniqua did her thing.  She used a lot of her yoga and ballet training, and even ended one of her sequences with the splits trying to get me eliminated, but nothing would stop me.  Finally, after about five hours, Shaniqua slipped up and the judges had no choice but to award me the world twerking championship.

There was a fair amount of booing from the crowd when I was officially announced the winner, but Shaniqua herself raised my hand.  I got a dozen roses and a tiara, which felt kind of weird at the time, but obviously they were not really planning on a white guy winning.  I gave the flowers to Shaniqua, but the tiara is in a memory box in a spare bedroom.  There was a press conference afterwards, but I was not asked very many questions.  They all seemed much more interested in Shaniqua, which was fine with me.  I understood.  I actually gave my winnings to a local women’s shelter.  Shaniqua was getting swarmed by hollywood managers and representatives wishing for her to endorse their products.

Shaniqua and I stay in contact to this day.  She has a million selling line of fitness videos, and has done work in movies and television.  Whenever she tells me about some big thing she is doing, she finishes with, “but you’re the better twerker.”  I did some motivational speaking for a while, and visited some schools, teaching kindergarteners some basic booty shaking.  After I slipped on some ice and hurt one of my hips, I was essentially out of the twerking game.

As far as I know, that was the only twerking world championships that was ever held, because the whole fad came and went pretty quickly.  I look back on that time fondly, of course.  I have a friend for life with connections to hollywood, and a tiara that signifies that I am the twerking world champion of all time.