Welcome to another mother runner. This is Sarah Bowen-Shay. I'm joined by Liz Waterstrot. Hello, Liz. Hi, Sarah. So I'm very excited because we're recording this before I head out to New Jersey.

But when this episode airs, I will be seeing my son John in yet another musical at his college, Montclair State.

And it is called, has a very long title.

It's called Natasha, Pierre, and the great comet of 1812

that is that is a mouthful yes um it is based on a 70 page scene out of war in peace

where natasha and i don't i didn't think it was Pierre who sees the comet.

Um, I'm forgetting who it might be. Anyway, so, but I, I mention it because I'm very proud of John with his dancing.

I know I've talked about it a lot on this podcast. He is doing a very difficult dance sequence in a number or two.

And this move is, turns out it's a move called the, I had to look it up, the full

Rizyadka or squat dancing or Kossack dance.

It's a Slavic dance move.

Does this ring any bells? Does this ring a balalaikas for you there?

No. No? Okay. So it is, in essence, it is a move done almost exclusively, I think, by men in Slavic folk dancing, where, and oftentimes they cross their

arms in front of their body, and they are in a very low squat, and they kick, alternate, kicking

their legs out, kind of, like, kicking their right leg out, you know, to two o'clock in their left

leg out to 11 o'clock, you know, do, do, do, do, and alternating while maintaining the squat. Yes. And I feel a real affinity for this dance move, Liz. Do you want to know why? Well, well, actually, well, no, but what I really want to know, I'm going to let you get to it in the moment. What I really want to know is, have you tried this dance move?

That's the thing. So, okay. So this is really, I'm going to pull back the curtain on what my childhood was like. I've mentioned before that I was not an athlete as a child. And this will kind of show why. So my parents, you know, I up in an age where uh you had a stereo that played

records and so my um when my dad would get home from work my parents would enjoy a cocktail or two

together and they would listen to an album oftentimes on the stereo and they had one that was balalaika music which is a balaika

is a slavic instrument it's a stringed instrument that's kind of has a triangular shaped body with a

long handle so it's like a really in essence a really wacky guitar and um so somehow I knew maybe there was a picture on the album,

or maybe I'd seen it on PBS, because, you know, that was playing a lot in my family

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