My Ballroom Dance Shoes

“Do not teach on the dance floor.” Men, it a breach of social dancing etiquette to presume that just because you lead, you know more. Ladies - do not presume to critique a guy’s lead/style/interpretation of the music or judgment. This is social dancing, not practice. If and only if, the lady (or gentleman) requests it, an area off the floor may be used to talk the lady through the step. If you can’t talk her through it, you don’t understand it well enough to teach it! “If you are the type that is open to criticism, ask other dancers to help you with your dancing. Perhaps they see or feel something that you do not. It is okay to talk during a dance and you might learn something valuable at the same time other than where the person is from.” There are some people who have no plans of ever taking lessons. These people depend on sensitively made suggestions, informal intermission time lessons, and experience to become better dancers. Suggest they get a  pair of ballroom dance shoes for a more comfortable dance on the floor. Dance is a marvelous from of social interaction. It can make you many friends - or it can isolate you from the very people you would like to know. Here are some rules of the dance floor:

• Don’t teach someone on the dance floor unless they ASK you to do so.. (Un-asked for advice is not only bad manners - it is unacceptable behavior.)
• Don’t criticize a partner no matter how much you would like to. (Your job is to make the dance FEEL better from YOUR side. Just like LIFE the only person we can really change is ourselves.)
• “Don’t criticize *yourself* out loud no matter how much you’d like to”. It is not enjoyable to have a partner with whom I’ve just had a blast dancing with apologize and make comments that she needs more lessons or something like that. Sometimes this happens when they made a few mistakes, usually which a bad lead had something to do with, or I’ve led them successfully through things they weren’t familiar with but they followed beautifully.
• Dance to the understanding level of your partner to the best of you ability. Have FUN for a three minute relationship. Make your partner have fun. Put JOY in the dance and share the JOY with every partner.

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