Frozen, fluey and fed up of Cambridge, I arrived at Kelsey Kerridge wondering why I had agreed to attend a beginners’ hip-hop dance class. As I climbed the stairs, a giant poster of Wayne Rooney’s famous bicycle kick against my beloved Manchester City bore down on me. Inside the studio, a crew of apparent hip-hop die-hards were limbering up, effortlessly touching their toes and licking their elbows, all grinning confidently like the Cheshire Cat. The omens were not good.

Despite sounding like I’d bunged 40 kg of cotton wool up my nose, I chatted to some of the other newcomers. They were like me: bright eyed, shy and all staring anxiously at the swelling group of show-offs in the centre who were now leading their own warm-up, summersaulting, spinning on their heads and running up the walls.

Nevertheless, having bonded with some fellow newbies I was starting to feel more confident. I flung down my snow-drenched duffle coat and started to bust a few moves. Some people were there for the exercise, some to improve their dancing in Cindies but why was I there? I didn’t know. But as I bopped my head to the beat and started to cut some shapes, accidentally punching my new friend Forbes in the face, I realised: I didn’t care.

When the teacher arrived we immediately began to learn a routine. I was getting into it, copying everyone else and keeping more or less in time.  When we were told to switch positions from front to back, I stayed put, revelling in the anonymity of the centre: I was winning. Maybe I’d be the next Ashley Banjo, start my own street dance crew, conquer the world, have a short stint as a talent show judge on sky1, live the dream…

But then it all got on top of me, I was enjoying myself so much that I lost the thread of the moves. What came after the double jump twist and twirl? Was it left or right foot first after the quadruple backflip-spin-shuffle? I copped out and decided to take some pictures, all but one of which were blurry. 

Soon enough though, I was back in among the thirty-odd dancers, having unhelpfully missed the entire middle section of the routine. It was at this point that Forbes, his face having presumably just recovered from the earlier incident, muttered something about an imminent video recording. But I pressed on, twirling here, shimmying there, telling myself he must be deluded.

He wasn’t. Not only was there a video but we were to be split up into smaller groups for the filming. The forest had been felled and there was no place to hide. I seized my camera and began to position myself self-importantly around the room, trying to claim journalistic immunity. But then someone kindly asked if I wanted a picture taken of me and suddenly the camera, my anti-humiliation shield, was wrenched from me. I was exposed and ended up in group number three.

The evidence is on the web for all to see. I think I handled it pretty well. Yes, I was facing the wrong way for most of it and decided to do an odd sort of marching thing with my legs halfway through but I’m pretty proud of it. As far as I’m concerned I took on street dancing and won. Job done. 

Ronel Talker is a fifth year Medical student at Cambridge and runs hip-hop dance classes for Cambridge residents every Saturday at Kelsey Kerridge.