I have discovered something truly terrifying… My timbrel hands have crossed over to Zumba… don’t know what I am talking about? Well hold on your hats…

This is a timbrel:

Well a timbrel with a CD in it… you may recognise these from the Salvation Army… or the time those two old ladies played the timbrel on Britain’s got talent and argued with Simon about the difference between timbrels and tambourines… which if you happened to watch that, you will now know that timbrels have two rows of small cymbals and Tambourines have one… but I digress (but if you would like to continue this tangent here is the link…).

The timbrel is used kind of like rhythmic gymnastics… it’s a little weird and sometimes uncomfortable to watch, but if you do it right it can look very impressive.  As a younger girl in the Salvation Army I was in the timbrel brigade… that is the timbrel performance group, where we played rhythms on the timbrel with timed choreography to mostly brass band music, but occasionally something that was a little more out there… like worship music.

Now, even though I haven’t really given it much credit so far… I loved playing the timbrel, and I still do, although now I only really play at Christmas time to the Mariah Carey version of Joy to the world… again I digress… When learning to play the timbrel one of the most important things… as any timbrel leader (or sergeant, depends how army you want to be) will tell you (myself included) is that when playing the timbrel your must tuck the thumbs of your non-timbrel hand in otherwise it looks sloppy.  I will admit I learnt this the hard way, by having my uncontrollable thumbs bandaid’ed in place by my leader (who was also my aunty).  But since then as soon as I pick up a timbrel my left thumb automatically tucks.

I thought that this automatic tucking was specific to the timbrel but this is where I made my terrifying discovery.  At Zumba we did a dance… routine… fitness extravaganza… strange semi-co-ordinated movements, which required us to put our hands in the air and then back down… if I was a stick figure… I would look something like this:

It was during this that I made my terrifying discovery, unlike everyone else who just puts their open hand in the air… mine tucked…

And I looked like an idiot… the worst bit is I can’t do it the other way… with just an open hand it feels wrong… and it wasn’t just my non-timbrel hand that tucked… but both… yes both…

I am not really sure what I am going to do about this, but it appears for the time being I am stuck with timbrel hands… even at Zumba… no bandaids required anymore.

P.S  I just discovered that if you feel like you have missed the boat and you too really want timbrel hands… well you are in luck, there are some instructional videos… so you can learn in the comfort of your own home…just click here… seriously check them out… you know you want to.