Project 30: The Friday Night Waltz

Task 11/30: Take a Ballroom dance Lesson
Complete: March 21, 2008

I waltzed. No, really, the girl that can't put one foot in front of the other and walk without running into something, tripping or bruising herself went to a social dancing event, and danced. It was freaking awesome.

I was terribly tentative, and even grumbly about how much I didn't want to do this, how stupid I thought it all was, how did I get tricked into this, why was I doing this, it was dumb. (I've had a long week at work, I was tired and wanted to spend my Friday night in front of the tv, so I was unnecessarily negative.) I was asked by a friend of mine who goes a lot, and who is wonderfully graceful, taking multiple other dance classes every week. I told her I was afraid I would embarass her, but slapped on my skirt and my jazz shoes that hadn't been on my feet in 10 years and sucked it up and went, as four of us ladies packed into a car and headed to Palo Alto for the Friday Night Waltz.

Last night was in a different location than normal, so there was only a 1 hour beginning class followed by a 1 hour intermediate class. I guess normally, they separate the beginners and intermediate people and they each get a 2 hour lesson and then they dance. Later we discussed that method probably works better, since you go straight to practicing what you learned rather than moving on to learning something else like we did. It's the fairly normal approach to social dancing, where you pair up leads and follows in a big giant circle, learn and practice a few steps and then rotate around the circle. I've always really appreciated this aspect of social dance training, because not only is there the obvious benefits of being able to go without a partner, but you don't get stuck with a bad partner and get lots of lessons from different good partners. I was very thankful for all of my partners last night, there wasn't one person I danced with that I didn't walk away a better dancer.

Everyone was really, really nice and smiley and fun. For all the reasons I fell in love with the cowboy bar, I fell in love with the Friday Night Waltz. Every type of person you can imagine is in that room. It's the most amazing cross-section of society that you could imagine and probably couldn't come up with if you hand picked them. It's beautiful in a way that words can't even describe and as the night went on, I started thriving on it. I ended up thinking later about how I am socially and how this really works for me. I get to force myself to interact with lots of strangers, but it's on a very temporary basis. Someone asks you to dance, or simply walks up to you with their hand extended, you take it, you dance, and if they are a gentleman, they escort you back off the floor and then you part ways. The flow of it all becomes a dance in itself.

The beginning lesson flew by, and I felt like I managed to learn the steps and not step on anyone's feet too majorly and quickly realized that, out of the 40 people in the room, I wasn't the worst dancer. I do have some solo dance training and performance experience, so I know form and function in dance fairly well, it's making my feet go where my brain wants them to that is hard on a normal day. I was feeling like I had been too hard on myself but when the intermediate lesson came, I started to falter and panicking that the growing class was being offset by me being 4 steps behind. In fact, I even thought a few times about how I could dash off the floor and stop embarassing myself, but started faking it until I made it. Turns, promenading, picking up where my feet were supposed to land each time...damn, that was definitely harder, but seemingly, I hung in there and the lessons came to an end.

By the time the dance started, there was easily 100 people in there, and apparently, that was 1/2 the size of a normal night. They run the evening in sets of 12 dances, combining different waltzes with mixes of latin and other genres to mix it up and then starting again with a new set of 12. I danced a few songs in the first set, warning each partner that asked that I was bad, new, tentative and going to likely crush their feet. They all laughed, said it was nothing, and had their own encouragement usually ending in a statement about just following them. I was asked for a cross-step waltz for my second dance, one I had not learned in the lessons before. I did my hesistation, but he insisted, and learned very quickly a good partner can make you feel like Ginger Rogers. He flew me around for those few minutes and I felt as graceful as I have ever been in my whole life. I don't think I will ever forget that moment, as he turned, and led me around that floor with strength like I was a pro. His leading was phenomenal and gave me increased confidence to dance more that evening, paying attention to the lessons each partner was trying to teach me, everyone super patient and helpful. Just as I found myself learning from people who were a bit behind me, I guess they probably learn from teaching me as well, and they get to dance at the same time.

I danced a swing and got it down pretty well, even though it was a really simple one, but again, I had a good lead who insisted I just keep my feet below my shoulders and put my shoulders where my frame sent them, and he would guide my frame. It worked and when the music started again he kept me on the floor and I was happy. My favorite dance my next. It was one like you see in old movies with royalty where they are all dancing in a circle and changing partners, almost like a greeting dance. You did you 8 measures with one partner then nodded as you then turned to your new partner, making your way slowly through every partner and back to your own. It was a great dance to practice a simple turn, promenade, waltz step transition over, and over and over, until it was hard to not have it down perfectly by the end. I loved it. It was the thing I think that clinched my future attendance at the dances. I had already fantasized about learning to be as graceful as the woman following the teacher in the class, but now I knew I wanted to learn more. It was so polite and proper and sweet. I could not wipe the smile off my face, as I quickly found myself dancing with another partner, unable to shake the momentum from the last dance and finally starting to get the beat. But alas, that clinched it for my feet and I was starting to feel much more exhausted than I expected. It's a definite workout for sure, especially some of the dances where you are spinning nonstop. I struggled with that one, never sure when to put my feet down, feeling like I was going to hurl and unsure where I was supposed to spot or was going next, from left to right, I got lost and by the end was sweaty and dizzy.

I'm really pleased with last night, and for all the lessons I learned about not just dancing but myself. We all piled back in the car at the end of the second set and headed home all talking about next time and other lessons we can go to. It was an event definitely project worthy and something we call...

MISSION COMPLETE!