This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Ballroom Dancing, Men & Women, Shoes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
No matter how well or how badly I dance, my mission out on the dance floor
with a partner who has consented to dance with me is to provide them with enjoyment from our brief dance encounter. That objective should be mutual. If you have any other mission out on the dance floor in a social dance situation, review your motives. You are not out there to prove how wonderful you are, how marvelous you look or how much better you are than your partner. In a social dance situation you are dancing with and for your partner. There is a time and place for learning and it is not in the middle of a social dance floor during a social dance, even if it is requested! Refrain from doing it. Consider it as being rude. Very rude. If your new partner’s dancing is not suitable to you it is necessary that you prevail through to the end of the dance and say, “Thank you!” It is not your obligation to give her (him) a critique of their dancing ability from the dance you just experienced, no matter how bad you might feel it was.
Competitions training, seminars, mutual help sessions where everyone is there for the sole purpose of learning or improving are quite another case. It is understood that in those identifiable learning situations you are invited to offer gentle and constructive criticism to your partner. Tell them about the necessity of wearing ballroom dancing shoes while out on the floor. If you are not capable of this sort of tender, gentle & constructive criticism, let others who are better equipped handle it.
