So You Think You Can Dance, part 2

A week after the swing dance lessons, the pain in the arch of my left foot is nearly gone. On the schedule for this week: intermediate waltz. Cool. I like waltz because, well, it's the only dance style I've ever felt successful at. (I recall how my attempts to dance with rock music actually drew pointing fingers and covered mouths. Hm, won't do that again.)

There was a lot of time between evening church and the start of lessons. I went to the nearby Walmart for some unsuccessful shopping for stuff I thought I needed and was growing nauseated from not having had enough food. I bought a couple of protein bars at a cash register in the middle of the store and, with receipt in hand, wolfed down the bars right there. I tend to favor peanut butter stuff. One of the bars left grit in my throat. Its irritation led to hacking and coughing for the next 45 minutes. Excellent.

Fast forward. I'm in the dance hall and have joined the 30 others who indicated they wanted intermediate waltz over beginning or intermediate salsa lessons. The male instructor asked a series of questions about who had waltzed less than 6 months? a year? 2 years? I was the only one who raised my hand for the less than 6 months query. The instructor said that in the next hour we were going to learn to do "this" and grabbed his partner and stepped and slid and spun and paused and spun the other way and another travel and then hesitate and, oh, now the lady is plunged backward and looking blankly into space as for a photo op and then the twirl out of that. The guy next to me and I spurt out expressions of disbelief.

My great skill in tapping my foot to music continued to prove ineffective in my learning new moves. Hey, waltz is supposed to be a 3/4 thing. I learned the box step 20 years ago. One, two, three, one, two, three. That's groups of threes. Simple math says that if I do two groups of threes, whatever was my starting foot will be the foot that's ready to move after two groups. Oh, but Jim the Teacher is now on his other foot. What? Watching, watching, listening, aha! He snuck in an extra step right there. I seek confirmation: "Is there a skip at one point?" The teacher, mic'd to project his voice to our section of the gym through large speakers, points out that, no, skipping is hopping on one foot. He was sacheing, he said. ("Oooo, sacheeeeeeing. You can say sacheeeeeing." I didn't actually say that or think that, but I think it makes for good reading.) I watched again and AHA, he had an extra SKIP in there (okay, on a different foot) that resulted in the change in final foot. Okay, progress for me; I was soon able to complete the first twirl thingy on my own and then with whatever gal was now paired with me from the ongoing rotation.

I tended to introduce myself when moved to the next gal in the circle. Maybe half of the ladies told me their name; not a big tradition there, I guess. "Dude, just assume The Frame and do the your dance steps so I can learn my bit," I imagined them thinking. So, in the handful of times when I heard my name called by a woman, it jarring because it felt out of place. It was always used as part of playful conversation but also when I think I looked clueless. Yeah, nice to have my name remembered, and I hope it was an expression of comfort in playfulness and not simply ease in identifying the dancing rag doll from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And so I made it through another one or two moves, with only minor brain damage. Then they got to the plunge part. Okay, I'm not happy now as I write this. I left the evening having not understood how to plunge right. What I was consistent at was tipping while the gal leaned back and continuing to tip off balance. Yeah, that's rewarding. Yeah, I'm sure the ladies like watching their upside down view of the gym wall now start to include the floor. My tempo-oriented brain wanted counts! What should happen on one? on two? on three? Sure, he explained it a dozen times and demonstrated it, but... I don't know... I missed something, obviously. That put a damper on things. In the subsequent multi-style free dance period, I was willing to try anything but that plunge bit; unfortunately, we were taught these moves in a particular sequence, so it was like a puzzle piece that had to be fit in or the rest wouldn't work. When they started the free dance period and a waltz piece came up, I spun around by myself on the floor, attempting and reattempting the moves I'd learned, attempting to get the steps right. Nope, try again; again; again. Pretty inconsistent.

A chinese woman who was not part of our little class zipped up to me, ready to go. Sure, why not. Ballroom dance is supposed to be led by the man. In this waltz lesson, little was done to encourage us to mix up the handful of moves we'd learned. Noooo, we did all of "random" moves in a particular sequence through the whole lesson. Good for teaching several moves in one lesson, but not good for teaching me to be a bit more random. In that moment, I decided that I would just lead. I'd do the basic no-brainer box step. I'd try to dig up some of the stylish yet simple waltz steps I'd learned 20 years ago. And I'd try to insert some of the moves I learned tonight. I'd just go for it. And I did! Yeah, I mangled several steps, but by golly, she followed and we twirled and I got her walking backwards sometimes and forwards other times. Hey, that worked. And when the music ended, she said she'd never taken waltz lessons, that she just followed. YES! I took it as a positive and went and ate grapes and brownies and drank liquids in the break area. I went back in and sat all cool-like on a side chair. But reality was that I didn't want to take the risk that one of the actual waltz students would want to do the scripted routine and get me into the plunge predicament again. I went and had more grapes.