Category: The Student Perspective

Inspiration -> Fear -> Why Not

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I’ve been reading Patrice Tanaka’s Becoming Ginger Rogers. It’s a memoir and in it, Patrice shares her journey into ballroom dancing and how it changed her life. Sound familiar?

I never get tired of “life changed by ballroom” stories. Her story has so many familiar elements; it’s like reading a letter from a friend. While I was sitting in the shade by my apartment complex’s pool on Monday, she related the story of her first ballroom competition. I was, of course, instantly transported back to my own competition experiences and was struck very hard by a strong desire to be in that world again. Like right now.

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Just Enjoy It – Two Great Lessons and a Book Launch

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This past week, I had my two regular lessons, one working on rhythm and the other working on smooth. During the rhythm lesson, we danced the cha cha routine to music and I NAILED that stupid spin TWICE! Then we worked on rumba and I “upgraded” my hip movement, according to Teacher. During the smooth lesson, we revisited tango. Teacher wanted me to focus on keeping my right arm forward (I tended to let it pull back, especially when the movement required me to put my left side forward). We worked on these tiny adjustments I could make to be able to take my left side forward without affecting the right.

You know how your teacher will tell you to do something and keep telling you you’re not doing it and then all of a sudden, after making the tiniest adjustment that you may or may not be aware that you made, they exclaim “yes, that’s it!”? Usually, in that situation, I have no idea what adjustment I made. But during this week’s smooth lesson, I actually started to feel it. I consciously made a tiny correction while we were dancing and Teacher felt it and confirmed it was correct!

Sounds like an awesome week, right? Well, it was!

So what’s the catch? There must be something, it can’t all be good.

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Cha Cha – The Foxtrot of Rhythm

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If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know I have a love/hate relationship with foxtrot. I’m always just a little off in understanding that dance. Things never go quite right. Steps constantly elude me. It’s maddening.

At the same time, foxtrot seems so fun! The music, the slick moves, it reminds me of old Hollywood and great dancers like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. But for whatever reason, this cat isn’t so cool when she tries to foxtrot. Foxtrot is my ballroom nemesis.

Now it seems a new villain has come to town: cha cha.

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The Salsa Club

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My friend and I went to a bar/restaurant last night that has salsa and bachata dancing several nights a week. It had been about six months since the last time I went salsa dancing and boy, did I feel it! After one guy kept me on the dance floor for two songs in a row, I sat down and was ready to go to sleep about two minutes later. Granted, the songs were four or five minutes long! But still, I felt a little pathetic.

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Dancing with a Headache

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I’m one of those lucky people who gets frequent headaches. All sorts too!  Tension headaches, caffeine headaches, not-enough-sleep headaches, weather headaches, and even those extra special migraines. Thankfully, I don’t think they are considered “chronic” as in 15+ days per month, but they show up often enough that I buy my Excedrin at Costco (one of those bulk warehouse places for those unfamiliar).
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Do or do not, there is no try. Or is there?

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Happy Saturday everyone! If you recall, during my dance lesson on Wednesday, I was super self-critical. I couldn’t do anything right, and every compliment Teacher gave me was drowned out by the negative noise in my head. After reflecting on the lesson, I realized I was letting my demons get the best of me again and resolved to go into Friday’s lesson with a different attitude. So I made some commitments to myself.

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