When It's Almost Right

Mrangelmeg and I have been taking a summer ballroom dancing class from a different instructor because our normal instructors don't hold classes during the summer and we thought we would lose ground if we didn't keep up with the training. The problem is that this new teacher has an entirely different style than we are used to, and at times it really catches us off guard.

For instance half of last weeks lesson (and from what she said tonight, some of next week as well) was spent on polka! Now I don't want to be thought of as a snob, but I can promise you that polka is not one of the international dance sport competition steps. I am pretty sure that there will be no time in the foreseeable future when mrangelmeg and I will find the need to use our new found skill at polka, but we find ourselves spending well over an hour of our precious instruction time learning how to dance it.

The other thing about this instructor is that she only knows two ways to dance, her way and the wrong way.

Take for instance Swing, our favorite step of all, and the one that we have the most experience in. According to our new instructor after watching us dance Swing the first Friday evening, we are using the wrong hand hold. In order to be dancing correctly in her studio we have to use her approved hand hold even though every instructor we have had, and every video we have watched has told us to use the one that we use and are comfortable with. So at least for the next six weeks, when we dance Swing (she uses Swing as a warm up each week) we have to use the awkward hand hold that she says is "the proper Swing hand hold" or she will continually correct us.

Oh well, we are learning new steps. Tonight we learned some new moves in Cha-cha. And when this class is over, and we return to our regular instructor in the fall we can go back to our familiar hand hold in the Swing and be comfortable again. We just have to take the good from this class and leave the rest.

Pax