is stepping onto the dance floor. In public.
For me, anyway.
One of the reasons I resisted learning to dance for so long, and so stubbornly is my vanity. I hate to fail. I particularly hate to fail in public.
That's also the main reason I started by taking lessons at the dance studio rather than just showing up at the dance club and trying to copy the moves. Or going to dancing meetups and learning there. Or free lessons at the local honky-tonk. The Dance studio is still my main outlet, though.
The more people are there, the less comfortable I am. The more I feel they are watching me, the less comfortable I am. The better the other dancers are, the less comfortable I am.
If the other dancers are drunk, that helps me a bit, sad to say. If I feel like I'm pretty decent at the dance in question, that helps too. If I feel like I'm better than the average other dancer who's there, that helps. Told you I was vain.
That "feeling confident about a dance" thing is recent. And fleeting. Right now the chances of running into a better dancer (or several) at any random venue is essentially 100%. And that's at the country place, where dancing is playing third fiddle to drinking and carousing. In a Salsa club, very nearly every single person there is not only better than I am, but a LOT bett er than I am. Some of them are stratospherically better. Those people are SERIOUS about dancing and basically don't drink (which, I'm told, is why "Lets have a Salsa night" is often the last desperate act of a bar that's slowly dying... I believe it too, the bar where I got hooked by the DanceEvangelista is now a Mexican Restaurant)
I know there are people that are comfortable in the spotlight, I've met them. Some I admire, others intimidate me, others just seem like some kind of alien.
But it's not me. When I take the Meyers-Briggs personality test I score 75-85% Introverted. And I've learned recently that I've got a triple threat - I'm Introverted, Quiet, and Shy. Plus I'm definitely not a naturally graceful, instinctive athlete. Quadruple threat.
Heck, I'm most nearly comfortable with private lessons (one person watching me fail, and she's a professional being paid to be understanding), less comfortable with group lessons (there's like 8 or 10 people in there!), even less comfortable with practice parties at the dance studio (a couple of dozen people, some of whom are VERY good dancers), and least comfortable with dancing in Real Life (panic!). I've spent hours at dancing venues where people are dancing and all I can bring myself to do is watch. I got into a conversation about this the other night at a swing dance when a woman noticed that I was mostly watching, and asked me about it. She approached me, of course. We had a nice chat, I'm pretty comfortable with words...
The best way to estimate how painful this is, is, notice how much the dance studios can charge for their services, their expertise, and most of all, their emotionally safe learning environment. People say all sorts of things, but their true feelings are shown by how they spend their money. And I'm happy to pay it, I prefer it to the many free options available. Still, I think this price is actually is a low estimate. I spent years avoiding social venues in general, and dancing specifically, rather than pay the cost in money and feeling uncomfortable. That's cost me more than my dance hall dues, and there's no way to quantify that.
But I'm working on it. Even just trying different studios, with different people is a challenge, but I'm doing it. I've joined a couple of dancing clubs and I'm going to their classes and events. I even did a couple of performance pieces at my home dance studio a few months back, and I've got another coming up (yes, I need to blog about this, but this is, in fact, one of several things that have kept me too busy to blog....) I'm trying to get out to social dances regularly, and for the most part, I'm there (Often, I'm there standing with my back against the wall, but I'm there....)
There is no way around. The only way is through.
