When my wife said she wanted to take dance classes, a wave of nausea passed over me. There are so many reasons I shouldn’t do this. I have never been athletic. My body shape is closer to a walrus (without the tusks) than a professional dancer. I don’t even clap in church because I can’t stay in sync with the rhythm. Whenever we have been in a social setting where dancing was required I would wait for the sloooow dance – you know the one where the floor looks like a sea of Imperial Penguins, all swaying from side to side in unison – get to the middle where you won’t be noticed and the crowd will keep you from falling over – and then waddle with the best of them.
Did I mention that I’m deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other? Music? What music? And I’ve got bad knees. Well sadly, Dancing with the Stars has wrecked all my standard excuses. They had a deaf lady – Marlee Matlin. They had a one-legged lady – Heather Mills. They had a 400-year-old woman. And they had Master P – oh please God, tell me I’m not as bad a dancer as that. And then to rub it in, they had 8-year-old kids who looked great. With no excuses left, I made my wife only two promises: I’d try, and I wouldn’t complain.
The first class was 6 weeks of the Country Two Step. That’s a progressive dance – meaning you dance in a counter-clockwise direction around the dance floor, dodging walls, corners, posts, and worst of all – other people, who, unlike the fixed hazards, keep moving into where you were planning to go. It is also a dance that requires a frame – that means your arms and torso are in a fixed position, so that, theoretically, when you turn your torso, the woman turns hers the same way. It’s a grand idea; dancing in unison. The practice leaves much to be desired. The hazards were bad enough, but it was the frame that nearly killed dancing. Trying to get my wife down the floor in a straight line was like trying to steer a car with the steering wheel unattached. In other words, I had no frame. We traveled in a random walk on the dance floor. We finally stepped out into the hallway and tried to travel just 10 feet in a straight line. Forget all the patterns the students were learning, I was just trying to steer. I kept reminding myself that I had promised my wife I would try. And try I did. We never did go much in a straight line and we did learn a turn or two. Looking back, I can truthfully say it was the first dance I ever forgot.
The second class was 6 weeks of the Country Waltz. There was that frame thing again. Steering through a minefield of walls, corners, pillars, and people. I felt like the frog in Frogger. Oh Lord, please just get me to the other end of the floor alive and I’ll do whatever you want. We got the silly idea of going to a country and western dance hall and trying out our newfound skills. There is a reason they don’t let children drive cars. It was soooo fast. Everyone looked soooo good. The floor seemed soooo small and soooo crowded. That was definitely not a good idea. The pizza was good, though. I did promise her I would try. And true to my other promise, I hadn’t complained yet – to her face, at least. The Country Waltz was the second dance I have forgotten how to do.
The third class – I really do love my wife – was 6 weeks of the East Coast Swing. It’s also called the Triple Step. That’s where you take three steps in two beats of music. It’s called syncopation. Who thinks this stuff up? Two steps in two beats – that’s being in sync. There’s nothing in sync about three in two. It dawned on me that dance is designed around doing everything opposite from what’s normal. Consider Cuban Motion in the Rumba? That’s where you step with a bent knee while your trailing leg is straight. It’s the reverse of how we walk. Normal is straight leg out, bend leg behind. Just when you think you are getting it right, they tell you that you should be stepping on the inside part of the ball of your foot. Huh? Who walks this way? Oh yes, and if you are on your toes, like in the third beat of the Waltz, the next step should be toe first, then the heel. I get brain freezes just thinking about which part of my foot is touching the floor. It just isn’t natural.
Anyway, back to the Swing. This was the first non-progressive dance we learned. No traveling. No walls. No posts. No traffic. Open stance, meaning no frame. Actually, there is this thing called compression, but for a new dancer, I didn’t worry about that. No frame – yippee! No steering! No hours trying to go in a straight line! No praying! And then the first dance miracle happened. I raised my arm, and my wife went under it and did a turn. It was amazing. What I had intended her to do – she did! I couldn’t believe it. All those moments with the Two Step and Country Waltz, where I’d lead and nothing would happen, just faded away. I raised my arm a second time. She did it again! Cause and effect. Holy cow, it works! A third time. A fourth. This is just amazing. “Enough,” she cried, “I’m dizzy.” That’s when I discovered the second advantage of the frame – you can hold your partner up. So my wife is staggering around, and I’m trying to steady her. I don’t know the name of that pattern, but we do it a lot. For the first time, I was beginning to enjoy dancing.
A lady friend at work told us about a Swing club in town (not “swingers club,” but a “swing club”). Fearing another C&W experience but honoring my commitment to try, I sucked it up and went anyway. Most of the dances were way too fast, but we were able to do a couple of them. I had to remember – three turns and she is still vertical, four and I get to do our “hold-her-up” pattern. After a couple of weeks, the lady friend showed us the basic steps to the Rumba and Cha Cha. It was like discovering a parallel universe on Star Trek. Who knew? There were more non-progressive dances. They’re called “spot” dances, which is not to be confused with “spotting” when doing turns to minimize dizziness – which by the way, we haven’t mastered. More ways to dance where I didn’t have to steer. Oh, is life good!
That solved the dance floor hazards problem, but it hasn’t solved the 50 First Dances problem. You know the movie with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler where she has had a brain injury and can’t remember one day from the next. So each day Adam meets her, it is a “first date,” thus the title “50 First Dates.” Well, that problem still exists on the dance floor. I’ll lead a move, and my wife will say, “What are you doing?” “An open break to an underarm turn.” “We’ve never done that before.” “Yes, we have, we did it last week, and you said the same thing.” So, as with Adam and Drew, it is with us. Many movements that become our “50 First Dances.” We haven’t solved the problem yet, but hope does spring eternal, and I do promise to keep trying.
We took some more classes and even some private lessons. Oh, my wife still has to count the beat since it is difficult for me to hear it: slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. After she says it a few times, I say it several more, and if the song hasn’t ended by then, boom, out we go T-A-NGOing together. And she forgives me for my blue screen moments. You know the look. You see it on the computer screen when the computer crashes. Reboot time. We stop. She reminds me of which dance it is. Says slow, slow, quick, quick, slow a few more times that I dutifully repeat, and boom, it’s T-A-NGOing again. I’ve only fallen once, ironically right after I had bragged I hadn’t fallen yet. I’ve lost two toenails, or more correctly, the same toenail twice. But, by George, I got a frame!
See you on the dance floor!
