A while ago, I mentioned that the Mild Girlfriend and I had started taking dance classes (and I found myself involved in dance off shenanigans). Well, I proposed and she said "yes," so the Mild Girlfriend became the Mild Fiancée. And since we had already started taking dance classes, we figured we'd just keep right on with them. The only difference was that we'd now be taking those classes with a purpose: we started working on something we could do at our wedding.
That wasn't the intent from the outset (though it would've been awfully clever of me if it had been). We just started taking dance classes as a date night, figuring that it might be fun. And as it turned out, we enjoyed doing it together enough to stick with it. Having a little bit of extra practice for the Mild Wedding was just a nice bonus.
So, we've been working on footwork, timing, and all sorts of other little things so that we can have some fun with our dances. On a related note, did you know that "musicality" was a thing? I certainly did not, so I was quite amused when we worked on trying to improve our musicality. There's always something we want to work on every week, and that was the focus for a particular week. It's not dull repetition, but we do end up practicing things a fair amount. It's bound to happen when you stick to something for that long, you know?
Well, other than practice, one of the other things that can help is to actually perform the dance in front of other people. Nerves can make a big difference, and a dry run of sorts prior to the big day can help calm that quite a bit. If nothing else, you've gone through it all once before, so it becomes a little less intimidating. And if you can make yourself perform in front of a bunch of strangers, doing so in front of friends and family should be that much easier. So, we agreed to do a quick demo of our dance one night.
We were understandably a little nervous before the whole thing, but it mostly worked out. We're hardly professionals, so I definitely made a few mistakes. Still, one guy was waving his hands in the air back and forth (think someone at a concert), so it couldn't have been that bad. We got through the whole thing intact, and everyone's knees and toes survived the ordeal.
That said, my favorite part of it all was the commentary about it afterward:
That wasn't the intent from the outset (though it would've been awfully clever of me if it had been). We just started taking dance classes as a date night, figuring that it might be fun. And as it turned out, we enjoyed doing it together enough to stick with it. Having a little bit of extra practice for the Mild Wedding was just a nice bonus.
So, we've been working on footwork, timing, and all sorts of other little things so that we can have some fun with our dances. On a related note, did you know that "musicality" was a thing? I certainly did not, so I was quite amused when we worked on trying to improve our musicality. There's always something we want to work on every week, and that was the focus for a particular week. It's not dull repetition, but we do end up practicing things a fair amount. It's bound to happen when you stick to something for that long, you know?
Well, other than practice, one of the other things that can help is to actually perform the dance in front of other people. Nerves can make a big difference, and a dry run of sorts prior to the big day can help calm that quite a bit. If nothing else, you've gone through it all once before, so it becomes a little less intimidating. And if you can make yourself perform in front of a bunch of strangers, doing so in front of friends and family should be that much easier. So, we agreed to do a quick demo of our dance one night.
We were understandably a little nervous before the whole thing, but it mostly worked out. We're hardly professionals, so I definitely made a few mistakes. Still, one guy was waving his hands in the air back and forth (think someone at a concert), so it couldn't have been that bad. We got through the whole thing intact, and everyone's knees and toes survived the ordeal.
That said, my favorite part of it all was the commentary about it afterward:
- Instructor: "That was awesome, you guys. Good work!"
Me: "Thanks. I'm just glad we got through it. Next time, I'll even stay on beat."
Now, I had a fat grin on my face when I said this, so no one thought I was super upset or anything. There was a grain of truth to this, but everyone involved got a good laugh about this. - Mild Fiancée: "We got through it! We did ALL the steps! Now we just have to get the timing down."
Again, we have stuff to work on, so the last part of this was just a repetition of the earlier comments. The part that really made me laugh out loud, though, was how we did all the steps. We were so proud of ourselves for not screwing up the choreography or skipping a few moves (I've done that before). Baby steps, guys. Baby steps. - Instructor: "Aw, you guys are so cute."
I have no idea what we said or did to make this particular instructor say this, but I was quite amused when I heard this. I'll certainly take this over her saying the opposite, but now I really want to see the video that they took. Maybe there's some secret way of smiling that we inadvertently discovered while concentrating on the footwork.
All in all, I'm glad that we did that demo. It was a good way to practice, and everyone was super friendly about the whole thing. Now we just have to refine it so we can do it one more time.
Comments
Post a Comment