Why I Am Running: Because I Don’t Know How to Dance      

By Joe Larano Jr.

Let me paint you a picture: it’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and my wife and I, now seniors, decided to conquer something we’ve long admired but never mastered—dancing. Not for fame, not for trophies, and certainly not to audition for Dancing with the Stars. No, we just wanted to keep up at every community gatherings where everyone seems to move so gracefully in line dancing, ballroom, or the latest Zumba craze. With all the excitement, we enrolled in dance classes, thinking, “How hard could it be?” The answer: very.

The truth is, I was born with two left feet. Our tango looked like a traffic accident, our cha-cha resembled someone dodging potholes, and our waltz. Well, let’s just say it looked like two senior citizens trying to untangle a garden hose. My wife, ever the patient one, tried to spin and sway, but often she was just dragging me along like a stubborn shopping cart. We laughed a lot, of course, because laughter was the only way to survive the humiliation of stepping on each other’s toes more than we stepped on the actual beat.

Friends would ask me, “Joe, what’s the logic behind running because you don’t know how to dance?” At first, they thought it was just my excuse to avoid embarrassing myself on the dance floor. But actually, there’s a kind of philosophy behind it. Running is simple. No choreography, no fancy spins, no pressure to match anyone’s rhythm. Just me, my sneakers, the open road, and the rhythm of my breath. The sidewalk becomes my dance floor, and my running steps are my version of music. At least when I run, I don’t get booed or laughed at by a crowd of senior Zumba champions.

You see, running for me is more than exercise. It is freedom. It is the space where I can breathe, sweat, think, and move forward without stumbling over anyone’s toes, except maybe the occasional cat or squirrel in the neighborhood. Unlike dancing, running doesn’t require perfection. It only asks that you keep going, step by step, even when your knees complain or the heat of summer slows you down. In many ways, running has become my metaphor for living: keep moving, keep pushing, don’t stop even if you’re not the most graceful.

And maybe that’s where the logic ties in. We live in a world full of complicated “dance steps” we can’t quite master. In our motherland, the Philippines, corruption continues to trip us up. Inflation and economic struggles weigh heavily on families trying to survive. And beyond our shores, wars rage in Europe and the Middle East, shaking the rhythm of peace for the whole world. These problems are overwhelming, like a complicated ballroom routine where we can’t keep track of the beat. And yet, just like in dance class, we often stumble, fall, and end up looking foolish.

So, what do we do? We run. Not run away, but run toward something. Running is a way of saying, “I may not control the whole world, but I can start with myself.” I can choose discipline, health, and clarity of mind. I can choose to keep moving even when life’s choreography feels impossible. By strengthening ourselves, body, mind, and spirit—we take the first step in confronting the chaos around us, whether directly or indirectly. It is our personal protest against helplessness.

So yes, I am running—because I don’t know how to dance. But more than that, I am running because life itself is not about perfect steps; it is about the courage to keep moving forward even when the music is messy and the floor is uneven. My wife and I may never master the cha-cha, but we have found our own rhythm, our own pace. And in this simple act of running, there is humor, there is health, and there is hope. Because sometimes, the best way to face a world out of step is simply to keep running, one honest step at a time.