WWTBAM Bored

I am relearning how to dance. The town community services course catalog arrived just before the holidays. They always have a ballroom dance class, held in the glamorous venue of the high school cafeteria. GW and I took it about ten years ago, but the skills have atrophied since then. I took lessons back in my junior high or high school days. I can't recall the name, but it was something like cotillion lessons, where the hormone-filled teens learned how to comport themselves with dignity and possibly how to do ballroom dancing. Those, too, are long ago and far away. So we signed up for the class again, one hour a week for five weeks. Enough to learn the basics, or so we thought.

Three reasons for the lessons. The first is the obvious, the father/daughter dance. I don't want to look like the lumbering hippo next to the graceful swan. Or break the swan's toes. Second is that I will likely have to dance with GW's 11-year-old god-daughter, who is in the middle of her own cotillion lessons as we speak. I'm sure she'll want to show off her skills to god-mommy. Lastly, I don't want to embarrass myself in front of the Fred and Ginger of the family, my aunt and uncle who can really cut a rug. Well into their 70's, they still get out there at every family opportunity and put the rest of us to shame. They'll be eying me critically, I'm sure.

The first class was last night. About 20 couples, ranging from oldsters like us to a youngish couple who may be practicing for their own wedding. We discover a slight hitch in our plans when the instructor starts up. These are swing dance lessons, not the classic fox trot and waltz. Well, okay, we can do this ourselves, but I don't think that it will be appropriate for the father/daughter dance. Might be a bit much for BD to manage in a wedding gown. I'll have to find the best of the free online lessons so we can work on it in our copious amounts of discretionary time.

Do stick with the swing dance lessons, though, because

a) the music is invigorating and the dancing will be fun!

and

b) you will regain what may be long-forgotten skills in leading your partner, which will help every other kind of ballroom dancing with every partner.

The Dad-Dot dance must be a more sophisticated thing on the tonier East Coast. <g>

Though I have not been to hundreds of weddings, I have been to many in a several-state area, and I have never seen the bride and her father actually dance. They do the routine pose and mainly turn in slow circles while they talk/cry/laugh.

[My father-in-law never dances. Amazingly, he did step out on the dance floor on a few songs at our reception. To make sure that he would do the Father-Bride dance, my wife chose "My Father's Eyes" (by Amy Grant), and she had her sister sing the song.]

Well, having photographed hundreds of father-daughter "dances", there does seem to be a preponderance of footshuffling/crying/laughing/sniffling going on rather than the artistic turns of Fred and Ginger.

I say - continue the lessons, even if it just is something you and GW get to do together to have fun.

It will also be great exercise and you can add the points to the Presdential Thingie.