The hardest move in dancing

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.

How it all began

I never thought I'd be taking dance lessons. I've been on a pretty deliberate self improvement kick for a year or two and dance lessons weren't on the short list. They weren't even on the long list. They weren't on ANY list. If you'd have suggested them, I'd have reacted like most men I know - like I was going to get cooties. And I'm not kidding - people HAVE suggested dance lessons to me in the past, and I sneered and ridiculed them. So I owe all those people an apology now - if you're one of them, find me and remind me, and I'll apologize and buy you a coffee or something.

So as a warning to other young men, here is my story. Here is how they suck you in and trap you in an experience that will enrich your character, expand your horizons and change your life.


I was eating dinner at a club one night, and instead of the usual karaoke or kickball crowd (really, I swear, they have tee shirts and everything...), people began showing up. People dressed to go out. I notice these people are pretty fit and slender, which is, sadly, rare enough to make them stand out. One lass shows up, and this girl is Put Together for an Event. She's got the sexy heels, and is in an actual dress which is also, sadly, rare around here. Whoever she's meeting will definintely be glad to see her. She heads over by where the DJ is set up, and where I now see a big happy guy in a Hawaiian shirt. I'm a nerd, so I'm not sure, but "Hawaiian shirt" feels different than "dressed to go out". If she's there to meet him, they didn't coordinate that much...

Anyway, the DJ is spinning Latin beats and these people start dancing. Like for-real dancing, not random twitching, You know, spinning and turning and stuff. Coordinated movement between two people. Like that. Hawaiian shirt guy gets even happier, because he's the only guy there so far, and he's in high demand, he needs one of those "take a number" machines. To me he doesn't look like he's the best dancer in the world - some of the time he's not moving his feet at all, he's just concentrating on spinning his partner. But when he moves it works, so he's got some kind of training or practice in his background. What he's doing looks totally doable. And he's having as much fun as is permitted by law.

Of course (as I would learn in my very first lesson), Dancing isn't about the guy, it's about showing off the lady. And these ladies are having fun and showing off. Put Together Woman (who we will now call the DanceEvangelista, for reasons which will soon become obvious) is a really, really good dancer. In my experience, there are two levels of good in most things. There is level one of good, which is totally obvious if you know something about the activity, but which is often lost on the outsider, and there's level two good, which is obvious even to an outsider, and as you learn more about it, just gets more and more impressive. The DanceEvangelista is level two good, and it showed even to my untrained eye in the span of about 15 minutes.

Some other Gentlemen show up, including Mustachios and Slender Latin Fella, and these guys are clearly better dancers than Hawaiian Shirt is. I 'm starting to see what is possible, but Hawaiian Shirt keeps reminding me it would probably be pretty easy to get started. And everybody is just having too much fun.

Of course, I'm too self-conscious to actually try anything, or ask any questions, but I am very much enjoying the show, and it's dawning on me why my Mom and everybody else kept saying that I should take Dance lessons. People come in and out, everybody has a different style, but the theme is "fun".

I get ready to leave, and I'm disappointed to notice that the DanceEvangelista has apparently left. Oh well, I guess I won't be learning to dance after all. I could ask one of the remaining dancers, but they're all the way Over There and the door is Right Here... (yes, I make excuses. I'm aware. Deal with it.)

Still, a pretty good night, all in all. Maybe I'll find out about dance lessons someday. I get in my car and head out.

And lo and behold, I drive past the DanceEvangelista and her boyfriend getting into a car in the parking lot. Sometimes the Universe is willing to give you ANOTHER hint. What the hell. I roll down my window and say "You guys were having too much fun, that's great" ... "Thanks" ... I ask "how would I get started ...?" And that triggers the DancEvangelista like she's an attack dog that just got the command. She more or less shoves the boyfriend out of the way and tells me "I'm an instructor at such-and-such studio, we have an introductory package that ...." I swear if she'd had a business card on her, I'm sure it would have been flicked into the center of my forehead like a ninja star. "Uhhhh... Thanks and good night".

In a couple of days, I make an appointment at the Dance Studio and show up to see what's what. I chat with a very pleasant, confident, mellow guy, and then he hands me over to Teach for my intro lesson. Teach asks me enough about myself to get a feel for how I learn, and immediately gets the fact that I'm a nerdly type that lives all up in my head. Not that I hide that, but it's cool that she's trying to reach me where I live. I'm not the first nerd they've taught, of course. I end the lesson only fractionally better than I began, but that's actually pretty impressive considering my total lack of experience or even a mental framework for any of this.

And there are other dancers there, Instructors and students, moving with grace and style. Inspiring, and awesome, and enviable. And some students that are on the wrong foot or locking up in confusion, or asking questions, all of which I've already done, and will clearly keep doing for a while.

And then the DanceEvangelista grabs me and gets a chance to do the OTHER thing she does really, really well - selling. And I say this with the highest respect - in a previous job I was the designated nerd for our sales staff, and I know second hand how important and difficult a job sales is. A good salesperson helps you see what's possible and shows you how your life can be made better, and makes it real to you. And the DanceEvangelista is hitting it out of the park, in addition to literally being a walking advertisement for dance awesomeness. (I'm starting to kinda hope she doesn't read this - wouldn't want her to get a big head....) It helps that she really, really believes in her product, and the staff, and the program, with good reason. It's frankly overwhelming. I know I'm a dilettante that's likely to lose interest and wander off after a while, and this is clearly her Life's Purpose (tm). That's intimidating to those of us who don't have one, and aren't likely to. But intimidated or not, there's fun and challenge and masculinity and grace over that horizon, and so I'm in.

Waltz, Rumba and Salsa lesson notes

Tonight I had a private lesson, we worked on Rumba, Waltz and Salsa. Some of this was review, but a little new stuff. This post is mostly just my lesson notes - Converting this stuff into words helps me remember it, but probably keeps me too much up in my head. So if lesson notes sounds like an uninteresting post, you'll want to click ahead.

Waltz:
We worked on Promenade. I've done Promenade in Tango, where it is similar, and, frankly, trickier. I need to remember to elongate my frame, and I think I'm opening my hips too much in promenade. The hesitation during promenade felt very natural, but then I'm a slave to the beat.

We also did an open break - underarm turn combination. Aaaarg, the critical details are already fading!! Let's see, 1st half of a normal box then sidestep? is that right? Then back rock step Left, and lead the turn, back rock step Right, (turning...) then another hesitation before we're off to the waltzes again. I'm starting to love the hesitations in the waltz, they're subtly dramatic and they're what makes it human and to me they add so much to the flow of the dance. Without the hesitations, it could be done by clockwork dancers (which I probably resemble, but not for long....)

Salsa:
We reviewed cross body lead, and I needed the review, I wanted to start it on 3 (back step), but it needs to be set up on 2, otherwise my partner can't feel it coming. We also did a double face loop, I tend to hang on too long, in which case I tend to turn my body out, but that's not the end of the world, it's a decent set up for a cross body lead. I think getting into the Right-over-Left handshake hold to start this all is probably my biggest problem right now.

We also reviewed coaster action, which I was fine with, but I had a surprisingly hard time knowing what to do with my right foot after my left foot comes up. I need a thousand reps, as usual.

Rumba:
We also did an open break, underarm turn combo, Teach is obviously building on the Waltz lesson. I need practice rolling my left hand from the closed grip to the low open grip. And I think I am often too high with my Right arm - Teach very insightfully helped me understand that if our arms aren't nice and straight, I can't provide a strong lead. I'm starting to get my lead together on the "close the door" finale to this combination (the same motion also completes the cross body lead), and I love the way that feels when I'm leading it confidently.


The DanceEvangelista has drafted me into a little dance competition on Saturday. I'm the token noob on her team, and we're going to do a Jitterbug. I'm pushing my comfort level here, Though I'm decent at Jitterbug for all my noobness, if I do say so myself. But I'm nervous about the spotlight. Making mistakes in the middle of a crowd of other people who are all working through their own dance issues is one thing. All eyes on me and no other distractions is intimidating.