A few months ago I brought up the topic of ballroom dance lessons to my husband.  Would he be interested?  Would he enjoy it?  Would he commit to maybe a six week period and see it through? 

He seemed agreeable.  When we were much younger, and before kids, we used to go out to the bars (yes bars) and go dancing.  Of course it wasn't anything fancy like ballroom but we would do the traditional waltz and shakes on the dance floor with no thought of form or fashion. 

Now it's a different story.  I'm hesitant to go out on the dance floor with no instruction.  So two weeks ago I saw a listing of classes in our local college of lifelong learning booklet and decided to call and get the details.  There were two beginning classes offered on Monday nights.  One was the Foxtrot and the Waltz and the other was the Cha Cha and the Rumba.  Each class was only an hour and the two classes were back to back.  So I signed us up for both classes.  I also called another couple to see if they'd be interested.  They were and they joined as well. 

My husband groaned.  Two classes?  But he didn't seem too disagreeable. 

So Monday night was our first night.  After the introductions the dance instructors (husband and wife) divided us up.  Girls on one side; the guys on the other.  The man showed the guys the beginning steps to the Foxtrot and the lady showed us gals our steps.  I watched my husband's face from across the room.  He looked really intense. 

Then they told us to get our partners and practice our steps.  The men were to lead and us ladies were to let them lead.  We were reminded about this quite a bit.  Gee, wonder why?  

These first steps came easily to me because of the line dancing I've been doing.  Nothing hard at all here.  But for my husband that was another story.  Like I said he was very intense.  I kept telling him to relax and breathe.  He was very stiff, nervous and unsure of his steps.  After a few minutes he started to get the idea and it got easier.  The dance police (the instructors) would cut in and dance with any of us if they saw a problem.  We must have looked ok because they let us go for quite a while until near the end when the lady danced with my husband because she saw something he wasn't doing right.  He wasn't leading properly.  His left hand is supposed to put pressure on my back as we go around the dance floor showing his lead.  And I wasn't given him enough "arm" she said.  My arm was too wimpy.  "Give him arm" she said.  Hmmm that  comment could come in handy later. 

So not too bad.  We then stayed for the next class and after instructions they did the same thing as the first class.  Men on one side, women on the other.   This time we were shown instructions for the Rumba.  Now while I thought the Foxtrot was easy, this was not so easy.  We were a mess doing this dance. 

When we hooked up, putting our steps together, we just couldn't get the hang of it.  The male instructor came over to help us.  Each time I showed him our problem areas he shut off the radio to instruct the class because we brought up some technical issue that they hadn't covered with us initially.  So I felt good about that.  Maybe our lack of grace had to do more with their lack of informing us on every little nuance to this particular dance. 

While the instructor was with us watching us, dancing with me some and trying to show my husband the male steps our friends we brought with us were dancing in the corner seemingly doing well.  Later they said they didn't think they were doing it so great either but since they were in the corner maybe they just didn't get noticed.  Hmmmm maybe we can try that.  When I was dancing with the instructor, I did fine.  Maybe that's because he knew what he was doing and I just followed his lead. 

Anyhow as we were working on this, and when the instructor wasn't in earshot, my husband kept saying "you owe me big time for this."  He was not liking this dance at all.  I can hardly wait till next week when they add to it.  That should be real fun. 

Before we knew it the time was up.  It was really fun.  I can't really tell how much the husband enjoyed it tho.  I think he liked it more than he was willing to admit.  On the way home my girlfriend said "one down five to go."  The subject then came up about our foursome pickleball lessons on Saturday.  "Now that's more up my alley" said my husband.  He's more of an athlete than a dancer so he would feel more comfortable on any court than on any dance floor.   But overall he did well for his first night.  It can only get better. 

We go home and of course, I wanted to go over the steps immediately so we wouldn't forget.  He found the couch and the clicker and that was that.  "No way" he said.   " We just danced for two hours."  So for him, that was good enough. 

So the next night I tried to pull him off the couch again to practice, even trying to use his competivie nature against him, by saying our friends have been practicing.  "If we don't practice, we are going to look really bad and they're going to have it down pat."   It did nothing but bounce off the ceiling.  He was in his relax mode position and no way was he giving that up.  "Tomorrow" he said. 

Tomorrow was last night.  We went over the steps. It's a wonder we even remembered them.  The Foxtrot we did much better and the Rumba still took quite a bit of our time.  We think we kind of figured it out but we're still on very shaky ground for sure.   

We came home that first night and watched Dancing With The Stars.  One of the dances they did was the Rumba.  Ha!  That in no way resembled anything we were doing.  I was trying as hard as I could to try and find a Rumba in the midst of whatever they were doing.  If that was the Rumba, they must have alot of artistic expression put into it because it looked nothing like what we were doing. 

My...we have a lot to learn.  Next up:  Pickleball lessons.