This week, I dipped my toe into the sea that is ballroom
dancing. Why not? I am an avid Strictly Come Dancing fan, and every year
promise myself that this will be in the year in which I learn to dance. Flavia
Cacace though I am not, I thought it would be something good to try. After all
(here comes my mantra for this year…) I will only get this chance once.
So I signed up for beginners' salsa classes. And, thanks to
one very helpful student from one of my year 11 groups, the worries about
signing myself up etc. were all taken out of my hands. There was one teensy weensy
little flaw in my plan, that being that the class I signed up for was a couple's
class. Being a singleton, I did not have a willing other half to take with me.
However, I was assured that this was not a problem; a dance partner would be
fetched from somewhere to help me, and I found myself excitedly anticipating my
first dance lesson. I had visions of myself gliding around the floor like a pro,
dancing with someone bearing a startling resemblance to Artem Chigvintsev, who
would quite literally sweep me off my feet, and all the while having Bruce
Forsyth tell me that I was his favourite. I couldn’t wait!
In my head, this was totally what I looked like
That was until I got there. On arriving at the designated
dance class, though the manager seemed to eventually twig who I was, no
mysterious dance partner appeared. The other couples in the room gave me very
odd looks as I walked through the waiting room, perhaps wondering to themselves
if the other half of my couple was hiding under an invisibility cloak, waiting
for the opportune moment to spring out at everyone, yelling “Ta-dahh!” As it was,
no one appeared from under an invisibility cloak, and neither did anyone who
looked like they might be the poor person designated to dance with me.
So instead I took a seat right at the back of the waiting
room, and busied myself with my phone, trying to pretend that the other couples
weren’t still giving me puzzled glances. In actual fact, a lot of thoughts were
running through my head simultaneously. Oh my days. FML. Why am I here? What
possessed me to think this would be a good idea? Why do these things always seem to happen to me?! I felt
like standing up in the middle of the room and saying, ‘Let’s get a few things
straight, shall we? No, I do not have a boyfriend. No, I did not bring anyone
else with me. Yes, I am aware this is a couple’s class. Yes, I shall be taking
part anyway. I’m breaking the mould, people! I’m living life on the edge.’
We were taken through into the proper dance studio, where,
yes you’ve guessed it, still no mystery dance partner. I made a mental bargain
with myself that I would give it five minutes and if I was still the loner in
the back corner after that time, then I would run for the hills. I don’t deal
very well with awkward situations, so this seemed like the best option. I would
never have to see these people again; none of them knew who I was. All would be
well.
“Right,” said the teacher (in German, obviously) “we’re
going to start with a move known as the pancetta.”
At least, that is what it sounded like to my amateur ears. Oh God, here we go, I
thought. I’m going to spend the next hour learning a dance with the same name
as some form of Italian bacon; a bit of a far cry from the exotic, Latin
American party-dance I had in mind. The moves we began with were fine; getting
you used to the steps of moving side-to-side and forwards and backwards. Things
were going smoothly; you didn’t need your partner. This is plain sailing, I
thought.
I knew it couldn’t last. “Ok, now grab your partner and get
into hold.” Holy shit. The game was up. I was left standing in the middle of
the room, amidst a sea of middle aged, smug couples, all still looking at me
strangely, wondering why I was still there. “It’s ok dear, your partner will be
with you in a minute. In the meantime, you can try the hold position on your
own, if you want.” Hmmmm, thanks, but no thanks. I don’t think I’ll add insult
to injury by pretending I have a
dance partner, when in actual fact I look like the biggest wally to ever walk
through the doors of your dance school.
So instead, I stood there like a complete wombat, hoping
against hope that my supposed dance partner would get a bloody move on. Fancy
having other things to do whilst I was standing there dying a thousand deaths. Eventually, as it turned out, the young
guy who works at the dance school, and was helping the teacher demonstrate some
of the moves was to be my partner. He came to my rescue just as I was preparing
to make a run for it, so it was my turn to look smugly round the room, realising
that being the loner in a situation like this does have its advantages. I got a dashing,
young dance teacher teaching me to salsa. The likelihood of my feet getting trodden on was also greatly reduced, though it did expose just how uncoordinated I am.
In terms of the actual dancing, surprisingly enough I wasn’t
too bad. There were a few couples that had clearly had dancing lessons before,
and got really into it and others that came from Stompsville of Stompstown of
Stompshire. I’d say I was fairly in the middle. For any Strictly fans out
there, I was definitely not an Alesha Dixon, but neither was I an Anne
Widdecombe. If Len Goodman had been in the room, I think he would have given me
a resounding “sev-ennn.” Aside from the fact that the poor chap that got
lumbered dancing with me was very tall, meaning I had to stay on my tiptoes for
most of the time in order to reach his shoulder, (next week I’m going in
heels,) I found the whole thing quite relaxing. Luckily enough for me, the
steps were fairly basic, so I soon found that I stopped worrying about my feet
so much and instead enjoyed chatting to my partner about all the different
types of dances that you can learn.
Once I had recovered from the shame of arriving as the only partner-less
person in a partner’s dance class, I found the whole thing rather good fun.
Though I doubt that I was ‘born to dance,’ and though I have a very long way to
go before I can move with the elegance of Flavia Cacace, this was another
exciting experience to jot down on the list of ones I am compiling this year. I
said I would give everything a go, and so far, I am fulfilling that promise to
myself.
Until next time
Emily
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