A Love Letter to Ballroom Dance
It's been over a year, but I want to write about it anyway.
In early November 2017, I took my mother's advice to heart.
She'd told me that I needed to find a hobby--some sort of activity to keep me balanced. My mother has been obsessed with me keeping "balance" since I was twelve and reading too many Harry Potter fan theories on my new laptop.
The fifth book hadn't come out yet, okay? We had a lot of theories.
I was extremely balanced in college--balancing an internship at a private security firm and my full 16 credit college load and a frat and writing novels and also ballet, but once I started ballet full time, it started to be my only activity.
In Santa Barbara, I branched out a little. When my mother told me to find a hobby, I did: Muay Thai! I bought myself gloves and handwraps and got kicked full force directly in my bony little hip by an ex-marine.
My mom called me and told me that that was not what she meant.
I began doing jigsaw puzzles alone on the kitchen table.
That wasn't what she meant either.
I don't know why ballroom came up, but it did. My mother was convinced it could make me more social (and she tried to get me to take an oral communications class for two years in college), and I knew it from some friends who'd done it competitively. I found an Arthur Murray studio a few blocks from home and emailed for an intro class.
Five months later, I performed two little duets and went to open classes and finally found my network.
I went diligently through the Arthur Murray bronze syllabus, ringing the little studio bell when I passed level tests, going to Diamond Star Ball in a fun carpool, and wearing a lot of very long, dramatic skirts that I would wear in everyday life if I were a little more confident. I learned how to move my hips, how to throw away my ballet training when in ballroom shoes and lead with my heels, even in waltzes, and how to have fun while doing all of it.
It's hard to describe how much the Arthur Murray studio meant to me. Firstly, I did manage to accomplish what I told my ballet teachers I set out to do: I got better at trusting a dance partner. From dips to throws to full on trust falls with just an arm on my neck, I trusted my teachers with everything and it paid off. I not only got dance training in a style I had literally never experienced before, but I got a little Santa Barbara community.
I also managed to connect on yet another level with one of my closest high school friends who had competed in ballroom at her college, and let her (major fearless extrovert) lead me (very scared introvert) in a rumba on the streets of Aarhus, Denmark on a Saturday evening when people were out in sidewalk seating at bars.
I don't think I'll go back to ballroom, not unless it's back in Santa Barbara. I miss the people, the atmosphere of the group classes, the little studio too much. My incredible experience was too tied to the people there and I'd rather leave my ballroom memories on the high note of being with that group than realize that the people I was with were 60% of what made it fun after I take classes at a different studio.
Maybe I could move back to Santa Barbara one day.
In early November 2017, I took my mother's advice to heart.
She'd told me that I needed to find a hobby--some sort of activity to keep me balanced. My mother has been obsessed with me keeping "balance" since I was twelve and reading too many Harry Potter fan theories on my new laptop.
The fifth book hadn't come out yet, okay? We had a lot of theories.
I was extremely balanced in college--balancing an internship at a private security firm and my full 16 credit college load and a frat and writing novels and also ballet, but once I started ballet full time, it started to be my only activity.
In Santa Barbara, I branched out a little. When my mother told me to find a hobby, I did: Muay Thai! I bought myself gloves and handwraps and got kicked full force directly in my bony little hip by an ex-marine.
My mom called me and told me that that was not what she meant.
I began doing jigsaw puzzles alone on the kitchen table.
That wasn't what she meant either.
I don't know why ballroom came up, but it did. My mother was convinced it could make me more social (and she tried to get me to take an oral communications class for two years in college), and I knew it from some friends who'd done it competitively. I found an Arthur Murray studio a few blocks from home and emailed for an intro class.
Five months later, I performed two little duets and went to open classes and finally found my network.
I went diligently through the Arthur Murray bronze syllabus, ringing the little studio bell when I passed level tests, going to Diamond Star Ball in a fun carpool, and wearing a lot of very long, dramatic skirts that I would wear in everyday life if I were a little more confident. I learned how to move my hips, how to throw away my ballet training when in ballroom shoes and lead with my heels, even in waltzes, and how to have fun while doing all of it.
It's hard to describe how much the Arthur Murray studio meant to me. Firstly, I did manage to accomplish what I told my ballet teachers I set out to do: I got better at trusting a dance partner. From dips to throws to full on trust falls with just an arm on my neck, I trusted my teachers with everything and it paid off. I not only got dance training in a style I had literally never experienced before, but I got a little Santa Barbara community.
I also managed to connect on yet another level with one of my closest high school friends who had competed in ballroom at her college, and let her (major fearless extrovert) lead me (very scared introvert) in a rumba on the streets of Aarhus, Denmark on a Saturday evening when people were out in sidewalk seating at bars.
I don't think I'll go back to ballroom, not unless it's back in Santa Barbara. I miss the people, the atmosphere of the group classes, the little studio too much. My incredible experience was too tied to the people there and I'd rather leave my ballroom memories on the high note of being with that group than realize that the people I was with were 60% of what made it fun after I take classes at a different studio.
Maybe I could move back to Santa Barbara one day.
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