Dancing Prude

I think I've ommitted a great detail!

In the past week of being sick, I forgot to write about our first dance class, last week. I'm reminded because we have another one tonight, and I'm relieved that I feel much better than last time. Dance Class is no minor detail. For two years Jenna has been begging me to take dance classes with her. For many reasons, my fear of embarrassment not being a small one, I've postponed and postponed. Although, technically, it had been something I wanted to do, I'm also not a fan of doing things I'm not good at. I'm already well aware that I am not a Fred Astaire ore Justin Timberlake, but closer on the scale to…well..ME. Add on top of that the fact that for two years (until August of this year) we did not have work schedules that met up and I typically was always working in the evenings. And again, add on top of that the fact that I SUCK AT DANCING.

But, before we even got engaged, when we both found ourselves in day jobs, I knew the time had come, and I was excited. Whether or not I personally felt like I would have fun, I knew that she would, and I knew that Jenna had been wanting this for a long time. As fate would have it, there was a livingsocial deal one morning for a really great price on month-long dance class at Century Ballroom. We both saw it and purchased one, and then the time had to come to figure out when to take the classes! I was already set to begin directing "Five Gold Rings," so that ruled out August & September. The next session for Swing I began last week, and we signed up, and here we go!

So, as you can imagine, coming to last Tuesday, I am filled with excitement to try this whole thing, apprehensiveness at my already known inability to dance, and mucus. I had hit my stride in terms of being sick, and I had to go dance. Not only that, but I had to dance with other people. YES, OTHER PEOPLE. One of my conditions on doing this whole dance thing was that I was taking classes so as to learn how to dance with Jenna, and therefore, I wouldn't need to dance with other people, and so we weren't going to take one of those "and now rotate" dance classes. Let me be clear: I understand the reason for rotation, for dancing with other people, for all of this. I don't care! She's stuck with me now, and she's stuck with me however I dance! I don't want to dance with all these other people who paid to be in this class! Anybody can pay to be in the class! ANYBODY! I don't want to dance with ANYBODY, I want to dance with JENNA!

We had this conversation going into the class, and I put my foot down! But then I learned that the fundamental thing about dance is lifting your foot UP! (and then putting it down again, but what's the point, when you just have to lift it up again? These dancers really have no conviction…they go round and round in circles all the time (BAH DUM CHUM). So when the instructors said that we would be rotating partners, I looked at Jenna, and gave her the "Nuh-uh" look. She smiled, and somebody else in the class was on my team, because he kept trying to interrupt the instructor while he was going on and on about the benefits of promiscuous dancing. Finally, after their sermon of LOVE and BEING SOCIAL, they said what I wanted to hear, which was: "of course if you really want to, you can stay with your partner and the rotation will go around you." YES! Take that, everything outside of my comfort zone! And yet…

Okay, so they made a good point in that it helps you dance better with your partner if you learn from others as well. So we tried the rotation thing once. Which was fine, because that was during the easy stuff. Rock Step triple step triple step. Rock step triple step triple step. Easy stuff. I can do that! So we rotated and I did this with some people who were better than me, a majority of people who felt pretty comfortable witht his, but not much else, and some people who…well, let's just say they made me feel more comfortable with myself on the dance floor. By the time Jenna got back to me in the rotation, though, it was time to start actually doing something….and I did not want to try that with a bunch of other people, so we stayed together the rest of the class. I hope we will stay together as partners througout tonight's class as well, but we'll see.

I've been practicing the swing rhythm all week, but I was having trouble with just the simple move they showed us last week. I'm a little concerned about what tonight's class may bring! Yikes!

Wish me luck!
Nathaniel