Dance dorks

I wanted to give you an update on the ballroom dance lessons Paul and I are taking. In a weak moment, Paul agreed to sign up for 8 weeks of classes. He was feeling guilty from his hours away hunting - on trips with pals and deer hunting - especially around my birthday. Yep, I always lay on the guilt trip thick then.

from a pheasant hunting trip with Tom Sullivan

The classes are held above the West Des Moines Community Center in the 2nd floor ballroom - a large space with a newly refinished wood floor. We attended class the last two Sundays, and again last night. We're switching to Thursdays - which is a smaller class size.

We will get more attention from our teachers that way because we are (currently) awful dancers! We've even practiced. Just like in any sport, (and - this does seem like a sport) practice helped. We are moving through the dances at an amazing rate. Too fast really. Why don't they offer remedial classes? 

• Merengue (pronounced merengay)
• Fox Trot
• Swing 

Classes are an hour long. We start each with one dance step and start the next at the end of class. Hell, we can't remember the merengue stuff already! Thank God for YouTube. We purchased the dance music CD from the teachers for $3 and practiced our Fox Trot at home Wednesday night in preparation for Thursday's class.

We were still pretty lousy. In our defense, I wore the wrong shoes (due to the cold weather). They stuck to the floor and the music was too slow. Yeah, that sounds pretty pathetic, doesn't it? I must fight the tenancy to lead - which I've done throughout our marriage anytime we've slow danced. Paul has to fight his "heavy hands" yanking me around. We must remember all our prior dancing experience often relied on alcohol. I guess that's why we always thought we'd be good at this...

Swing seemed more natural to us than the first two dances - like something we might actually do when dancing at a wedding. We may head to Creston tomorrow for a party with a DJ. Paul already warned me - "we aren't doing any of this stuff there"! He's not ready to break out the moves yet. While our moves on the dance floor aren't always synchronized, our thoughts are simpatico on this one!