Cue the fat lady

Today was the last of our community education dance classes. It went fairly well, but I could tell the instructor was mega-frustrated. We started with about 8 couples and one loner in the class. There was a two week break in the middle of the class schedule (Thanksgiving and all) and the week before that break we were down to about 5 couples and the loner who came on and off (but she was mostly off even when she was on). After the break only one other couple and Roland and I showed up. This was pretty sweet because we got a lot of personal attention and learned some pretty cool moves. And that loner I mentioned is the most uncoordinated stiff non-dance type person ever, so her being absent was like a breath of fresh air. She is a nightmare to watch and I suppose dance with (one fella mentioned that she has a death grip while dancing). Anyway it was quite nice to be with just that one other couple. They are pretty serious (in a fun way) about it, they even went to the practice the instructor holds at his normal place of business, and bought dance shoes. All this means that we were able to learn quite a bit.

This week: badness. The seriously fun couple showed up - cool; another couple who hadn't been there in ages showed up (not particularly quick either) - not cool; and lone terrible lady showed up - major bummer. The poor instructor was trying to teach all the hard stuff we learned last week to these people while keeping funly serious couple and us going, and it wasn't going very well. I'm not sure other people noticed but I thought he was getting pretty fed up, and I totally understand. He finally sort of gave up on the loner lady, but still ended up spending a LOT of time with her - poor guy. I still had a really good time in the class though. I don't know what it is about ballroom dancing, but I love it.

I've also decided that Roland was the second best guy to dance with in the class. The first would be the instructor (duh), but I'm pretty sure he could have made most people look good (just not loner lady, that would take a serious miracle on par with ongoing world peace). Also he is shorter than Roland and even in heels I'm a lot shorter than he is. This makes it difficult to 'lock elbows' with him for the Tango. The sunly ferious couple guy has a good frame (sorry Roland you have a tendency to droop just a tad when you are concentrating) and is not too tall, but he sort of bounces with each beat. Waltz and Tango are part of the *ahem* smooth ballroom dances, leave the bouncing for the club It's very distracting and hard to dance with. Plus he isn't nearly as good at the actual steps and the whole leading thing as Roland is. Roland pays a lot of attention to where the lady is and what he needs to do to make the dance work (yay Roland). The haven't-been-there-in-forever couple guy is mostly just lost. He doesn't really know the steps so that's hard to dance with and then he's pretty limp and sweaty. Mostly just yukkie. I felt like I was leading him most of the time. He also refuses to close with you, now due to the sweatiness that's a good thing, but to be actually dancing it is a really bad thing. The feriously sun couple guy was decent about holding you close and firmly enough to actually dance but still not a good as Roland.

I wonder if the instructor teaches a foxtrot or some other dance class in January. I know he teaches a salsa class, so maybe. I'm sure classes don't start until the mid to end of January so I guess I will have to wait for the brochure to come out.