TGIF!

It’s been a long week. Between less than engaging projects at work, a cough that won’t go away, and struggles with my demons over my latest financial “challenges,” I was ready for Friday, on Tuesday. But we made it! Thank goodness.

For this very welcome Friday, I thought we would chat about foxtrot.

Teacher taught a foxtrot group class last night, and one of the things we worked on is the character of the dance. Where tango’s sharp movements make me uncomfortable, attempting to exude foxtrot’s character brings out my anxiety!

When I think foxtrot, I think fun, flirty, and sassy, and I see 1920s flappers in a swanky nightclub. Everything is shiny and drinks are bubbly. And I’m the homely girl hiding in a shadowy corner, too shy to be the confident woman in the gold fringe getting all of the attention and too poor to afford the champagne she’s sipping.

But that woman in gold is who I need to become when I dance foxtrot! Why is being fun so hard?

Because you need to know you’re fun without anyone validating it. You need to feel like the life of the party, even if no one else shows up.

I am not there yet. I try, you can see the hip roll thing I tried to incorporate at the beginning of my foxtrot at Emerald Ball.

I try to add some pop to my grapevines too, both with the rise and with some shoulder attitude. Ugh, it all makes me cringe!

If I take a step outside my own head, I can sorta acknowledge it doesn’t look that bad. But I have such a great fear of “looking stupid” and my demons tell me that I do look stupid every time I try to push past the fear and let out my inner foxtrotter.

The other challenging thing about foxtrot is the rhythm. You think a box is a simple slow, quick, quick, slow, but the catch is to hold the first half of the slow and step on the second half. So if you were counting by numbers 1 through 8, your “slow” movement is over counts 1, 2 and 5, 6. But you’re not supposed to step until the 2 or the 6.

Trying to remember that plus express a playful foxtrot character doesn’t go well for me. But apparently, I have it in me somewhere, buried deep. In group class, Teacher danced a little routine with each of us that ended with a couple step points and shoulder rolls; we were supposed to really bring out the character and end with a pose. I assumed failure on my part before I even tried, but when we started dancing, Teacher said “come on, you can do this!” and I tried not to think and just dance. My brain connected the shoulder rolls to how I would dance in a nightclub. So I held on to that inkling and I must have done something right because Teacher shouted “yes! that’s it!” Nevermind that I started cringing because the demons pushed their way back into the foreground before I finished my final pose, but we’ll call it a success anyway.

So what dance is the hardest for you to exude character for?  What’s the easiest?

---

Don’t forget to check out other posts from the 31 Day Writing Challenge!