When I began dancing lessons, my goal was simple: develop enough skill to dance with the bride and a few of our friends at this weekend's upcoming wedding. If I got through without anyone needing emergency podiatry or me feeling like I should have stayed home and mailed a gift instead, the day would be a success. Dancing with the Stars or Saturday Night Fever could wait.
As it is, I've completed my first six weeks and decided to continue for a while. For one thing, doing so means I learned the foxtrot last Saturday, a real milestone. Not that it's all that difficult, but it's got style even if I have yet to develop grace, and it looks like late night slow jazz in a club in the Village with lovers whispering in darkened corners. Done well, even watching it leaves you breathless.
To be honest, what drew me to ballroom dancing was the image of leading someone across the floor like Fred Astaire with Ginger Rodgers, doing the foxtrot. I suppose I could be accused of being a romantic, but if you've seen the two of them in a classic film, you know what I mean. Besides, it strikes me as the kind of step a man can do that shows he's sufficiently secure in himself and his masculinity to at least try to be graceful.
And "try" is exactly where I'm at. My instructor is as fluid as mercury draining from a broken thermometer. Me? I'm still the Tin Man and Dorothy's taken the last train back to Kansas. But the beauty of the foxtrot is, it's forgiving. As long as you don't trip your partner and fall all over yourself in the process, you look pretty good. Not as good as Fred, but that's fine -- as long as none of my partners turn out to be Ginger. If that happens, I'm in big trouble.
I think that dancing is in the DNA. It has nothing to do with grace, coordination, or any kind of natural ability. When our granddaughter, now 7, was born, I said I wanted to take her to ballet school. Her dad said, "If she wants to go." I said, "It's already too late. If she's not called to it, no one will be able to make her go. If she is, no one will be able to stop her."
ReplyDeleteSnoopy was right: "To live is to dance; to dance is to live."
Mark Twain, I think (corrections welcomed), said "Work like you didn't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching."
Mark Twain did say it and the rest of the quote is, "live like it's heaven on earth." And if it's in the DNA, then I just need to keep working until the proper gene sequence kicks in. I noticed the other night that it helped if I listened to the music and followed IT rather than my instructor's cue, and I think that's going to help in the "real world." We'll see how it all goes -- I'm still "as green as a boy can be" and I'm not even walkin' in Memphis! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've managed to be married twice without including any dancing in either of the festivities. Not to say that dancing isn't a nice thing to include, I guess, if that's what one likes. Have fun at the wedding!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Garnet, it's going to be a special one since the bride and I have known each other since our first term when we were lab partners in anatomy. It's one of those relationships I hope last a lifetime. And about dancing at weddings -- it seems kind of the style now, I guess, or at least it's making a comeback. I'm just trying to "be prepared" as the Scouts would say. :-)
ReplyDelete