Dancing for beginners

So, as part of my attempts to improve my health and lifestyle, I have decided to take up dancing lessons - ballroom and Latin. A local couple who run classes in a number of towns around the region have just started a new "absolute beginners" class in my town, and I thought this was a golden opportunity to add a new skill to my set so last night I went for my first lesson. I also will make no secret of the fact that I was kind of hoping to meet some single women of my age or thereabouts - but so far that has not emerged!

The first ballroom dance was the waltz, and I totally have the basic steps we learned (standard 'forward' and 'box' steps) down: I've been practising since the lesson too! It's kinda neat to have that option available now, because the waltz is still associated heavily with romance and seduction (in the nice sense, not the creepy senses) and I need not be shy of asking a woman (or indeed, a man - I'm sure I can do it backwards too!) to dance a waltz. The chance to cultivate the whole "gentlemanly" demeanour seems good to me.

One thought that came to me: the reading and (limited) understanding I have of Tai Chi were useful in getting the hang of it. This is because Tai Chi involves a lot of awareness of balance and shifting of weight. As I found, and the instructor explained, there is a tendency to favour one foot over the other so that you always lead off on that foot when in fact you have to alternate from one to the other (otherwise you end up going diagonally and that's wrong). To prevent that you have to be conscious of your weight and shift it deliberately on the third beat of the waltz time so that you next step will be with the opposite foot from the one before.

I struggled a little more with the Latin dance we're studying first, which is the cha-cha. This turns out to be because I'm used to playing music and want the strong step to be on the first beat (I recognised this as the instructor explained it to me, because I could hear in the music that I'd been expecting "DUM- dum- Cha-cha-cha - DUM- dum- Cha-cha-cha" and in fact the music was DUM- DUM- DUM- cha-cha-DUM- DUM- DUM- cha-cha" (so that the first DUM is actually the third "cha" in "cha-cha-cha"). In other words, I was looking for the cha-cha-cha to start on the 3rd beat when it really started on the 4th beat.

I actually ducked out of practising to the music in the class because I realised there was no point practising it wrongly (and the instructor was only able to help me out afterwards for a couple of minutes). I'll have to make sure I have it clear in my head which beat is which movement with my feet next time, I think I'll even get the instructor to go through it on a piece of paper with me so I have some form of pseudo-musical notation to help me frame it. Hopefully THEN I will be able to dance it properly.

It was really frustrating to come away having NOT yet grasped the cha-cha, but as I say - I'll get it next time for sure.

One thing I did remember afterwards: one of the common complaints for the judges on Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Wheels on Latin dances was that contestants would get off the beat. Now I know what that was all about and why it happens! I suppose it makes me feel a little better knowing that it's not that unusual a problem.