Last night my fiancée and I took a beginner’s dance class as sort of a first step toward not frightening children at our wedding. The instructor began by asking if anyone in the class had NEVER taken a dance class before. I was the only one to raise my hand. This was my first warning sign. Indeed, most of the class had taken THIS beginning class several times.
Luckily the instructor ignored those novices and adjusted his instruction for the one true beginner in the class. And by that I mean he singled me out with hilarious comments about my lack of ability.
For those of you who have never taken a dance class, it goes something like this. First, the instructor demonstrates some footwork a bit too fast for you to have any frickin’ idea what he did. Luckily he repeats the demonstration several times, each time differently as far as you can tell. And often you can’t see the demonstration at all because a big guy named Tim is standing in your way.
Armed with this lack of information, you take your partner and proceed to humiliate yourself by moving randomly and hoping that this flailing somehow turns into dancing over time.
The instructor offers many helpful hints such as “Lean over your foot; don’t just stick it out.” As it turns out, if you don’t know where that foot is supposed to go, the leaning doesn’t help as much as you would hope.
Then you have the issue of “leading.” Apparently that is something that a guy with a tin ear and no frickin’ clue is supposed to be doing. In other words, it’s just like the leaders at your company. But I digress. This dance-leading problem is compounded if your fiancée is an excellent dancer who can hear the beat. The Seeing Eye Dog does not like to be pushed into traffic by the blind guy.
The instructor tried to teach me the beat by repeating 1-2-3 over the music in a way that prevented me from hearing the music because he kept saying 1-2-3 really loudly. Sometimes he would throw in a 4-5-6. Sometimes he said I should move my foot forward on the 1, sometimes the 2, occasionally the 4, all without explanation. Let me tell you, if you start throwing numbers at a guy like me, they better have some &%$@* explanation to go with them. Is the beat on the 1 or the 2 or the 3, or are there three beats and then some silence? And why do you need the 4-5-6 sometimes and not other times? What the hell is the algorithm? I don’t know if rage is what most dance students feel, but my Fist of Death was starting to clench and the instructor had a near death experience without ever realizing it.
Toward the end, the instructor helpfully suggested that this beginner’s class was way over my head. Someday I hope to take a class to raise my level up to beginner.
But first I must find the beat. All I know is that it has something to do with numbers.