Ballroom Dancing - Foxtrot Fundamentals

Last night was my first group dance class at the Washington Dance Club in Seattle. There is definitely a difference between what we did on Wednesday and what we did in Seattle last night.

Wednesday night at Arthur Murray, we had a 30min private lesson where we had one instructor's undivided attention to walk us through the basics of 5 dances. Last night was a 45min group class where one instructor walked 5 couples through the basics of one dance, the foxtrot.

The instructor began by teaching us to walk heel-toe and to sort of drag our feet between steps. She also went through other basic fundamentals of dancing with a partner.

• Always keep your feet in line with your knees, in line with your hips, in line with your shoulders
• The leader should always keep their frame (their arm structure) slightly to the right of their body to avoid stepping on each other's toes or bumping knees
• The follower should always keep a "toned" frame so they can feel where the lead wants them to go
• The leader should always lead off on their left foot

This video is slightly long and dull but it contains all the fundamentals we learned last night.

After the instructor had us practice the basic walk, she then introduced the first foot pattern for the foxtrot basic. I provided a video in yesterday's post that I think covered this information well. In fact, I felt far more confident in my understanding about the foxtrot basic after watching that video then even more so after last night's class. Perhaps I simply misunderstood the guidance from our first instructor at Arthur Murray. We shall see next week when we see her again.

We practiced the foxtrot basic while in ballroom position (meaning in the arms of your partner) a dozen times. Walk, walk, step together. Walk, walk, step together. Slow, slow, quick, quick. Slow, slow, quick, quick. The problem with only knowing the forward basic though is that you simply end up moving further and further into the opposite corner of the room and that can't work. Hubby and I ended up in the little kitchen area several times. Then it came time to learn to take that back the other direction. Simple. Instead of the leader walking forward, he just walks backward and the follower follows. Back, back, step together. Back, back, step together. 

That means it must be time to learn another pattern that can get us out of the corner. Next we learned the rock step and the 1/4 turn.

Ok, now that we got a few basics down....it was time to practice. Cool right? Well, yes and no. Practice is always a good thing but in my opinion it's not fun when I have to practice with someone I don't know, never met, and who can't figure out which foot is his left and which one is his right. Yup. You guessed it. She had us switch partners a couple times so every woman got a chance to dance with every man in class, except for the couple that refused to switch partners. I'm thinking they had the right idea.

Pros of switching partners:

1. You get a chance to experience what it's like with someone who you can't predict their movements
2. If you're a follower, it's a good thing to learn how to just let go and trust what the leader is doing and that's easier to do with your own husband or boyfriend or whatever
3. If you're a leader, it's a good thing to learn to lead all the time and not let the follower lead you which happens more times than not in a committed relationship
4. "Dancing" with 4 other men last night made me appreciate how fantastic my husband is at leading and how much I really do love dancing with him

Cons of switching partners:

1. One of the primary reasons I like ballroom dancing with my husband is that it really makes me feel closer to him and if I'm dancing with someone else then I completely miss out on that
2. I don't ever dance with other men so there is no need to learn to do it
3. I don't feel like I can improve if I'm constantly having to adjust to my new partner's abilities (which last night and in my past experience were significantly retarded - their abilities that is)
4. I have a nice roomy personal bubble and for strangers, it's considerably larger so asking me to allow them to touch me let alone come within arms length of me is asking me to compromise my boundaries...no thanks

Was it a great workout? Not at all. But it was just the basics. Perhaps when we get into more actual dancing, it'll be better exercise but for now, it was barely active. Fun and interesting for sure but a good workout it was not.

Ballroom Dancing - Just the basics

One class down, and Hubby and I learned 5 dances. Amazed? So was I when the dance instructor informed us of this little factoid. Here's how it went.

Last night was our first ballroom dance lesson at Arthur Murray. They had us fill out a little paperwork to tell them why we want to learn to dance and what benefits we're interested in deriving from it. They also give you a list of dances they teach and ask you which ones you're interested in learning. We signed our life away and off we went with the instructor.

She asked us about our experience with ballroom dancing. Since we had taken a few classes with the Boeing Dance Club years ago, we had some basic experience, none of which either of us could remember. That dance club was awesome too, until we got kicked out. Neither of us work for Boeing so they decided to close it to anyone not employed at Boeing. That was a sad day.

Waltz
Once she got us on one of the 3 dance floors they have in the building, she started with the Waltz basic. In my opinion, the waltz is the most beautiful dance. I get the below image in my head when I think of the waltz. Deborah Kerr in The King and I. It wasn't the waltz they danced while she wore this dress though, I think it was the polka they danced. The polka is not pretty at all but I'm sure it would be fun and tiring.

Anyhoo, the waltz basic is just a simple box step. Here's a video to show you how the basic goes for a man. The woman does the same step but while the man steps forward, the woman steps back and vise versa so both people are moving together.

No matter how clumsy you may be, I think it's impossible to feel anything less than beautiful when you are doing this movement. How do I know? Well, last night I had to rush to class right after a session with my personal trainer. I was still sweating all through the dance lesson. Can't get much less beautiful feeling than that and I still felt pretty even doing just the basic in my husband's arms.

Rumba
The next basic she taught us was for the rumba. The rumba is known as the slow and sensual latin dance. The rumba basic goes like this:

I like Robbie and his red shoes. Our teacher didn't teach us all the body movement that he emphasizes in the video though. She just taught us the basic foot movements while dancing together. I feel robbed now after seeing how fabulous he is in the video. She did tell us something interesting that he didn't though. The rumba basic is very similar to the foxtrot basic. One difference between the two is that the rumba and most latin dances are intended to stay in one place on the dance floor while the foxtrot moves beautifully across the floor.

Foxtrot
The foxtrot was the next basic we learned. It's similar to the rumba in the quick-quick-slow, quick-quick-slow part of it. But as I mentioned above, the foxtrot can easily move across the floor. It is also faster and a tad more bouncy than the slow sensual rumba. Watch.

Hmmmm....now I'm thinking our teacher might have taught us something incorrectly because that basic was nothing like the rumba. Good thing I have another class at a different dance school tonight where I can ask questions of someone new.

I think I'll wrap this post up here and save the swing and the hustle for tomorrow.

Happy Dancing....

January 2012 - Ballroom Dancing

You may have guessed it from the lovely picture above or you may have already read my intentions in a previous post. Either way, I have decided to kick the new year off right with the beautiful drama of ballroom dancing. That will be my focus for the entire month. Ok, lets be real here. I can't focus on just one thing. I don't work like that. So, I will direct part of my attention to ballroom dancing while still balancing all the other things on my priority list.

Hubby and I have taken a couple classes before but it was years ago. We have often talked about doing it again but without any real resolve to make it happen. For Christmas, he decided to make it happen. Lucky me! One of my gifts from him was a gift certificate to Arthur Murray Dance Studios. He got us an introductory offer that includes 2 private lessons, 1 group lesson, and entrance to a dance where we can practice our moves.

I thought about it and realized that 3 short lessons weren't going to be enough to get a real taste of such an in depth and intricate activity as ballroom dancing. People spend years perfecting one dance and there are dozens that fall into the vast category. No, 3 little lessons were definitely not going to be enough, fabulous as it was of hubby to take the first step.

I did a bit of research and found another option that I think will work wonderfully. At Arthur Murray, we will get evaluated and be given specific advice for how the two of us can dance together in general while learning some of the basic steps and such. Then we will go to another dance school I found in Seattle called Washington Dance Club where we will learn to Waltz, Foxtrot, Swing, and Cha Cha.

We will not have enough time to perfect anything I'm sure but at least we'll get a taste of a few of the different dances so we can decide if it's something we want to continue to do together.

Below is my calendar of activities for January. You can also view all my activity calendars by clicking on the Activity Calendars tab above. I highly doubt I will be successful in doing every one of those activities every day but it's something.

January 28th is a winter dance FEST where we can put all of our hard work and lessons to the test on the dance floor. Looking forward to that!

Sunday guitar lessons are back
Tuesday French classes are back too
Yeehaw!

Happy New Year