Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Discovering through Dance

The old adage that one never stops learning is so true.  Every day we all learn something new or discover something that was there  – be it a personality trait, a skill or some other potential. And these discoveries can happen in the places we least expect them to.  And, it is such a discovery that leads me to write this blog.
Ever since I was a young teenager, I loved to dance.  I loved drama classes and I was never shy to take the stage.  While I had acting and dancing abilities, I had not even a 1% ability to sing. So I never pursued singing.  I always firmly believed that to be successful, it is better for an individual to tap into their strengths rather than try very hard to improve the weaknesses. And so, since I loved dancing and always admired those that danced so exquisitely, I decided to take Ballroom dance classes.

When it comes to ballroom dances, I knew only the waltz – the name that is … I could not do a proper waltz! That was nine months ago.  Today, I can actually tango and believe it or not, I learnt that there is the Argentine Tango and the American Tango.  I learnt the latter which allows the dancers to maintain some distance as opposed to the former where dancers have very close body contact throughout the dance. Both styles of the Tango have beautiful deliberate moves, great posture with strong, sharp movements of the legs, hands and head. It is a theatrical performance of a couple in a fight – the ebb and flow of emotions.

After nine months of dance lessons, I can waltz, foxtrot, swing, cha cha, rhumba and even do the hustle! But it was nine months of discovery and learning. It was learning to dance and discovering how passionate I was about being perfect and eager to do things well;  to take every task seriously.  What exactly did I discover?  Well, I will tell you!  In the field of dance, the female is always the follower – the man leads and as a follower, your steps follow those of the leader – he moves you, sways you, turns you, pulls you close and lets you go! As a female, if you have the innate ability of a leader and you love to lead projects and take the initiative to get things done, then as a beginner dancer, you will get very frustrated and your frustration will mount if your dance partner, the gentleman, is also learning.  The point is, as the dance instructor pointed out, men take a bit longer than women to learn dance but once they start to improve, their dance skills improve much faster than the women. So that was my first discovery – I was never a good follower … I always wanted to lead and waiting to be led while I was ahead on the dance curve caused numerous fights between my husband and I.

I discovered my impatience and, my desire to always lead. And, I also discovered the perfectionist that I am … when I could not get the steps perfectly, I was angry at myself ; I pushed myself to practice harder and concentrate more.  And, instead of having fun in the dance classes, I was angry, serious and impatient – how horrible!  I thought if I did not take it seriously, then I would never improve and my husband would remind me that this was not my job – he was right but this is how dance allows you to discover who you really are … your personality traits.  You come face to face with them as if looking in a mirror.

Today, both my husband I are better dancers and since I truly understand that the beauty of dance can only be with a leader and a follower, I now have settled into the follower’s role on the dance floor.  I relax more and have fun; but the next challenge now is that with the knowledge of over five dances, a guy must remember which steps and positions belong to which dance and how to smoothly transition from one position to the next.  This now is our new challenge and when as the follower you love a certain style and move and your dance partner does not give  you the pleasure of dancing those moves, you unfortunately cannot lead the dance so you stick with what the poor guy remembers to do … until he becomes an expert!  Then you are delighted to be his dance partner!

I invite you to dance and discover!

1 comment:

  1. I appreciate the idea of trying to control the dance. Same thing might be said of other arts and sports. If I push my writing, toward perfection, however (as one dancer might push the other around the floor), the writing may well trip up and fall down. I don't want to argue for ignorance of craft -- but for relaxing into it.

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