White, Part 3

Last night, I went out and did something I have been meaning to do since I arrived in the city, and really long before that even. I started learning to dance. And it was amazing.The church that I’ve been going to, which is a great church from what I’ve seen, has a kind of dance club, and they had an event last night. They were teaching tango, and my real interest is swing, but I figured it would be fun to just jump in and get started. I’m glad that I did. Tango is fun, and not too difficult I’d say. The steps aren’t that bad if you’ve got a decent partner. The music doesn’t have much of a beat though, so feeling how to step in time with the music takes a little doing. I’d say there were maybe 50 people altogether, different ages. I ended up spending most of the evening hanging out with a group of students from NYU. They were all a bit younger than myself, but they were fun and energetic, it was a good time. I danced with a few different girls, the instructor had us switching partners constantly, but one girl in particular stood out. Her name was Leah (sp?). She was one of the NYU students, I ended up getting paired with her and then she introduced me to the rest of the group. She’s tall, six feet without heels, so in the dance shoes she wore, she stood just about eye to eye with me. And I found that there were some real advantages to dancing with a girl who’s the same height. With all the other girls (who were shorter) I had to step more shallowly to not overwhelm them, but with Leah, I could step fully, naturally, and she could follow me without any trouble. She also just really enjoyed dancing, she was energetic, always game to try the new steps the instructor showed us, and wasn’t at all upset when we crashed into other people a few times. (I’ve heard it suggested that girls have the harder part of dancing, because they have to do everything the man does, but backwards. I’d just like to say, leading isn’t as easy as it might seem either. You’ve got to pay attention to where your partner is, help her keep her balance, not overwhelm her, etc. But you also have to be watching out so you don’t crash into things, and you have to plan your steps ahead if there are other people on the dance floor. It can be tricky.) I had a great time dancing with her, and meeting the other people in that NYU group. I’m still all about learning swing, but I think I may learn tango and salsa too, which seem to be the other two major “groups”. I enjoyed dancing even more than I thought I would, and I’m definitely going to make a point of doing it more.