Fight for your right to..... uh.... dance?

Our bellydance troupe had been meeting at one of the gyms on post, in one of the rooms where they teach aerobics and stuff like that, when that room is not in use. We would get the schedule of classes each month, then we'd work around that. Occasionally, it would happen that our preferred room would be in use unexpectedly when we'd show up, or that we'd have to leave early because they had something planned for it that wasn't on the schedule, but that was pretty minimal, and pretty easy to deal with. We pretty much just came and went as we pleased, and it was not a problem. We weren't bothering anybody, or using anything that anybody else wanted at that time, so there should have been no trouble at all. Sure, sometimes we'd get people asking what we were doing, because they'd hear us zilling, and come to watch us dance, but we usually just invite them to join us. Nobody ever had a problem with us.

That changed today. About half an hour after we got there (and we usually dance for at least 2 hours, so we were barely getting started), a lady from the office came in and asked what we were doing. She said that in order to hold classes at the gym, we had to have prior approval. We explained that it's not a class, that we're just a bellydance troupe, and we meet there to practice. We told her that we'd been given the OK to use the room when it was not in use by classes, and that we had worked around the schedule. Seeing that that wasn't going to get rid of us, she took one look at Erin and Orren (who were wearing coin scarves and dancing with us) and Chai (whom I was taking a break from dancing to nurse), and said that they were a liability issue, and we had to leave.

First of all, BULLSHIT. It's a public facility open only to military ID holders. We are all covered, presumably by Tricare, so even if the kids did get hurt (which is extremely unlikely), it's not like we'd incur a whole gang load of medical bills. What's more, the gym is owned by the US Army, whom you CANNOT sue. It is physically impossible to sue the US Army, so there is NO liability issue. We knew it was BS, but we packed up our stuff, and we left. I took the kids and went home. Two of the other girls went to the office to discuss it further. They said it was straight-up BS from start to finish. We cannot, for the life of us, figure out why they have a problem with us being there.

OK, first of all, this is the ONLY post that any of us know of that doesn't offer any form of childcare in their gyms (and between us, we have decade upon decade of experience with the Army. We're all in our 30's, none of us are newlyweds, and most of us are former soldiers, so we've seen a lot of posts, and this is the only one like this.) Second, they allow people to bring their babies in strollers to the gym, and use the machines, or walk the track, or whatever, so the gym does not have a "no kids" policy. We fail to see how it's any safer for a kid, say Orren or Chai's age, to sit in a stroller next to an elliptical machine or stairmaster while mommy works out, than it is for them to hang out in a big empty room with a bunch of grown-ups, and participate in an activity.

So pretty much, we're going to be rotating houses to practice at until we can get access to the studio again... or not. In all this, I am thankful for one thing. The girls who are pretty much the leaders of our troupe do not have kids, yet they have stood beside those of us who do, and are not taking it lightly that the post gym is attempting to exclude us. They aren't going to just find more kid-free types to dance with. We're all going to work on this together, and we're going to keep dancing, and one day before too long, we're going to dance around the indoor track, in full dress, with all the kids in strollers, so as not to break policy, yet to show the people in charge just how much better it was when all we did was occupy a room for a few hours a week.