Hola. Welcome to the Jack of all Trades where I join a club every week, make an ass of myself and then write about it. This week I joined the Residence Hall Association’s “Swingers.” And no, not that kind of swinger.

I started life on two wrong feet with one very wrong head.

Twenty years later and I’m still the same klutz, tripping over words, ninjas and my own two feet. Hence, swing dancing has about as much personal appeal as taking a cheese grater to my crotch.

Not because of the teachers (Jon Dolieslager and Julie Heniff were wonderful; most students were spinning, bopping and moving in the first 30 minutes) but because I can’t dance. Most white men can’t.

It looks like fun for most people and vice versa — most people make dancing look fun. I, however, make dancing look like torture, and I torture people by dancing.

“Swingers,” the NIU Swing Dancing Club, began with a few simple steps and a rigid, taut posture. Keep your arms straight and your hands open like you’re holding beer cans. Good. I can do that very well.

Then dance these steps: left, right, pivot on your back foot. Repeat.

Fine, that’s simple enough. And so we began — with several cute girls I must have horrified and embarrassed.

Even though I like to think I put them at ease with my incredibly witty and triumphant half remarks, like ugh, argh, urgh, whoops, oops, dang, darn, damn, ouch and sorry-I-totally-did-not-mean-to-stick-my-hand-there.

Then Dolieslager threw a twist into the beer-can holding, left, right and pivot routine that by that time, I kinda-sorta had down pat.

Ostensively, we were supposed to do the steps, let one arm down and twirl our partner.

In actuality, I screwed up the pivot, half-twirled my partner, elbowed her in the eye and let her fall.

Soon, what once was bad turned pathetic; each new swing dance had no rhyme nor reason. Was it swing? Was it hip-hop? Was it ballet? Or was it the Jack of all Trades suddenly becoming the jackass of one trade?

What was even more ball-busting was watching these cute girls try to instill confidence in me, suffer, switch partners and swing smoothly with a new partner — for two solid hours. And there I would be struggling with my own two feet and the words left and right.

Again, I reiterate that my swing instructors (and my cute partners) were great; their program is perfect. A+. It’s just that in a world of dancing, a world of Chippendales and Patrick Swayzes, the closest this reporter will ever get is Chris Farley.