Shall We Dance?

Some stories have to be told many a times to others before you finally tell them to yourselves.
This is one of those.

Male bonding is funny..We guys do some really girly stuff when we think no one is watching.

In one ship,my friend and I used to bond in ways we wouldn't acknowledge publicly.

Yes I'm ashamed to admit it, but we watched Rom-coms and chick flicks together.

(They are easy on the brain and it doesn't matter if you follow the plot or storyline and as such are excellent at the end of a tiring day)

                           One of our favourite movies was 'Shall We Dance', starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lo-Pants(Lopez) and the ever beautiful Susan Sarandon.(I'm not overlooking very memorable performances by Stanley Tucci and Bobby Cannavale, whose histrionics were more entertaining than that of the rest of the cast)

                   Much as I hate to admit it, it was my fantasy to actually go through the same experiences, to stumble and learn how to dance,and magically undergo a life altering transformation and become a Dancing God!  (I'm stumbling a lot)

I'm told Men who dance well are considered sexy, desirable or gay.
Hey I'd like to be sexy and desirable and happy too !   (just not gay)

But there was a problem...my own past.
Once as a kid, I took dancing lessons...but just one class.

My body did not listen to me.I couldn't do a single step my instructor taught me.The longer I was in the class, the more ashamed I felt about myself .

Humiliated and Disgusted at myself, I quit, never to return.

Years later,when I took Public Speaking lessons ,one of my shortcomings that everyone pointed out was my stiff and mechanical body .My nickname was 'The Soldier !

Attention !

Stand Hut!

The solution offered by my teacher was ...yes you guessed right...Dance Lessons!

It was Nietzsche who said "What I am not,that for me is God and virtue'

I surround myself with friends who are better than me (yes you too!), for you have something in you that I admire and aspire to be.

           Similarly I have a cousin who is gifted with the ability to dance...I'm fond of her,and admire her for what she could and I lacked.I used to listen to her talk about dancing and her love for the art with rapt attention.(I must confess;I couldn't understand much of what she said, but was endlessly fascinated)

In my mind, my biggest weakness was my inability to coordinate my body in a graceful manner.

So when I found that my friend had joined a dance class,I decided to join myself...after all misery loves company.(my friend professed to be equally bad at dancing)

But what if I was a miserable failure like before?

What if I disgusted myself once again?

What if I make a fool of myself?

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"

                     As always, I go by the following adage...and I wouldn't want to rush in like a fool without actually knowing what I was getting into.

Thanks to the internet, I found a few videos and tutorials that supposedly would aid me in some way.

Here is my favourite one...

 

and another...

Boy,Was I wrong!

                Videos cannot substitute real live tutors and active feedback...also, the dancers in the video were too good and their natural ease and comfort made me depressed about my own lack of grace and coordination.

But guess what...I was not the same old boy anymore,I had changed.

   We had joined for a crash course in salsa and jive.

               The term crash course has omnious connotations but I had made up my mind to succeed where once I had failed.

                        In my research, I came to know that Salsa is a very popular dance form in Latin America, U.S and Europe. The word is the same as the salsa meaning sauce, metaphorically referring the music and dance being "saucy","Spicy" and "tasty".

Yumm!

                There are different styles that developed in different regions: New York style salsa, Puerto Rican salsa, Cuban style, California style.(I seem to be learning the Manglorean Salsa with a healthy helping of fish curry )

                          Normally Salsa is a partner dance, danced in a handhold.In partner dancing, the two partners are labelled as the lead and the follow, or leader and follower. Traditionally, the male partner leads and the female partner follows.

Now read this carefully...A lead controls the way the dance will go. He decides which moves or figures will be danced, and how to move the follow. The follow does what the name implies, and follows the lead. For the lead and follow to interact with each other, a connection must be established.

One goal of partner dancing is to move in ways that one dancer alone cannot.

                   I took up dance to unlearn stiffness and rigidity and to learn the art of gracefulness.However grace seems to be innate or maybe it is inherited -an elusive quality embedded in the chromosomes-passed on from generation to generation onto select offspring by divine providence.

                  I say that because when I look at myself dance in the mirror, I see a boxer looking for a street fight, a MMA fighter getting ready for a sparring session, a bull charging in a china shop...I don't like to look when I dance.Period.

But here was the crucial difference.

Once upon a time, I had gone to learn a solo style of dance.The entire emphasis was on me and also the pressure to perform.

I hated it.

This time it was a partner dance.I genuinly felt I could learn more than just dancing from this endeavor.

            A popular joke goes something like this...Dancing is a wonderful training for girls;its the first way to learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it.

                             It's not entirely true...The partner that follows and the one that leads both have to possess an inner drive to follow the soul of the dance and rhythm.

                              It's true that the lead controls the way the dance will go. He decides which moves or figures will be danced, and how to move the follow. The follow does what the name implies, and follows the lead.

                         Beginning leads try to control 99% of the dance. Advanced leads try to control 51% of the dance. The follow styles her own moves as she likes within the parameters communicated by the lead.

                 Learning to lead or to follow forces upon you a sensitivity and receptivity to subtle signals.

               I'm an ogre by all standards, lacking sensitivity but now I'm forced to gently lead my partner with pushes,pulls and gentle nudges.Dance teaches you the subtle art of non-verbal communication...to talk without words.

You learn to deal with diferent partners with different personalities:the stiff, the tender,the soft,the nervous,the light,the innocent and the unyielding.

                          I'm afraid to extend the metphor of dance to life,even though many claim that it is so.One word -"Feminists" and then two more words-"Political Correctness"make me queasy and uneasy.

                          If I say Dance is Life...that the world is a ballroom and we are the dancers...just as once Shakespeare did with the stage ,then the issue of man taking a lead and the female following might seem offensive and regressive and politically incorrect to many feminists and pseudo-feminists(I'm looking at you guys who act like broad minded feminists to impress women.You are truly snakes in the grass)

Dance is an art form,where the art should be highlighted above the artists.It is a form of expression and it should transcend  gender politics.

(wikipedia tells me that promenade-style dancing has no lead or follow, and that homosexuals in various parts of the world dance in exclusive venues making the gender politics partly redundant)

It is true though...Some women don't like to be led.They simply cannot follow.Maybe they are not accustomed to it.So they march to the beat of their own drummer,much to everyones chagrin.

"If the leader cannot lead, or if the follower cannot follow, it no longer remains a dance;it becomes a wrestling match" says my teacher .

I agree.

Sometimes we fight when we dance.

It ain't pretty.