Dancing

Forsaking our first Ballroom/Latin-American dance teacher, my regular dance partner and I have been going along to different classes recently, sampling different teaching styles. The Thursday night teacher, whilst the youngest, has an excellent style which definitely facilitates the learning process. Taking the man’s part, she first demonstrates the steps with one of the dance school’s numerous competent young female dancers as her partner. We all adopt the starting position and then she calls out each step as we move in formation to her calm voice. Her pragmatic approach seems entirely free of ego or the showing off that seems to infect some of the other teaching styles we’ve encountered. Besides that, she’s pretty with a delightful figure and very easy on the ear, qualities my dance partner hasn’t failed to notice!

We’ve also been along to the complementary class on Monday night, in theory learning the same routines set for the month (a Samba and a Waltz for September), but in practice slightly different. The Monday night teacher, a man, is closer to my age and puts his focus more on technique than on the routine. He demonstrates the routine then simply counts the beat, expecting the class to remember the step to perform to each beat (and for the most part, they seem to be able to memorise the routines quickly, something I’m having difficulty with so far). This Monday his regular co-teacher wasn’t there and he was partnered by a young lady (late teens?) we haven’t seen before. He demonstrated the forward/backward pelvis movement he wanted us to practice in the Samba routine, showing how his head stayed at the same height and the movement was accommodated through his hips tilting as he changed weight. Then he broke in on his own commentary to encourage us to watch his partner, saying how beautifully she accomplished what he wanted us to achieve. You could see the surprise and pleasure glowing behind her modest acknowledgment of his high praise. It was sweet.