I miss dancing as
much as skating (I do miss skating, but it just isn't working to be doing it anymore), but didn’t want to do the ballet classes again. The adult
classes don’t seem to go anywhere, and I’m a bit tired of hanging out with kids
(part of the reason I’ve grown slightly less fond of skating- the other is that
I was always getting hurt.)
I decided that I
would try ballroom.
Um, how did I manage
to find an activity that costs more than skating? The group classes are somewhat reasonable: 50
dollars a month for 45 minute classes. I paid $45 a month for 30 minute skating
classes. But the privates- OMG! It is
$85 for a 45 minute lesson.
I’m not sure if my
husband will social dance with me (he tells me if I really like it, he’ll give
it another try) so competition dancing seems to be where I’m going with this. I
would need private lessons. BUT OH MY
GOSH! I thought skating was too expensive. I’m a bit worried this isn’t going
to last too long…
Anyhow- my only
previous experience with ballroom was through the community college. Kevin’s
friend wanted a group of us to sign up for it, so Kevin and I did. It wasn’t a
great experience. The class was huge, so there was no personal attention. The
music was AWFUL (how many times can you listen to Mack the Knife in a single
day? And then again and again every class of the session). And our dancing wasn’t that great.
This time, I decided
to try class at a studio closer to my house. They do a free 45-minute private
lesson, so I did that yesterday. I met with the instructor and we did basic
steps for Foxtrot, Tango, Quickstep, Cha-Cha, Rhumba, East Coast Swing, and
Samba. Samba is out- that bounce is
HARD! (He only showed me that because I said Samba and Quickstep are my
favorite dances to watch. They don’t teach either of those in their group
classes.)
From that little
intro, I realized 1) If dancing with someone who is leading me well, I know
these basic steps pretty well, but not much else. And 2) Rhumba is totally
different than I remember it being in the community college class. There I just
remember it being a disaster… I also had
never done tango before and it was fun- I like the little lungey moves.
Also, the closed hold was way easier to do in ballroom than ice dance. Unlike the number of times I stabbed Carson with a toe pick, I never kicked the instructor J
So, I had hoped this
lesson would let me pick between the Ballroom and Rhythm classes, but I couldn’t
decide which I liked best, so I decided to do both for the first month. Here’s
the awful part: Group lessons are at 9:00 PM!!! I’m usually in bed by then.
Uggh… but I’d really like to try it, and not through Kirkwood, so I figure I’m
just going to have to stay up late. It’s like when synchro got their ice time
changed to super late. It was worth it though.
So starting Monday I
have ballroom (Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot) and Wednesday Rhythm (Rhumba, Cha-Cha,
Swing) classes for the month of May.
I bought a pair of
dance shoes, because while they say you can just wear any dress shoes and don’t
need specialty ones, well, I have exactly ZERO appropriate shoes in my house. I
own a single pair of heels and they have no backs. They say they take a week to get in, so
hopefully I’ll have them for at least half the classes.
I’m excited to see
where I go with this.
