Yes, we will be having that discussion at my lesson this week.
Transcript of the first 10 minutes of my lesson yesterday:
I was warming up in the small ballroom as usual. Pro came in & said, “hello, PNP! Let’s go to the other room.”
“Let’s talk for a couple minutes first.” He nodded. I crossed my arms and held eye contact. “Ok, so Friday night? You told me it was supposed to be fun.”
“What wasn’t fun?”
“You said no stress, no judges - ”
“Right...you felt stress?”
“Well, *I* wasn’t under stress, but apparently my dance partner was under stress.”
“Why...?”
I put my right hand on his left shoulder blade and extended his right arm with my left hand. “Because you led me with things like this,” I replied, squeezing his right hand and tightening my grip on his shoulder blade, then glared at him and started walking forward, pushing him back as I said, “THIS is the tempo...YOU follow ME...THIS is the tempo.”
He pulled out of my hold, leaning his torso back. “Arggghhhh!”
“Exactly. And then - ”
“ - but that foxtrot. I mean, come on. That was - ”
“ - and then you were like, ‘really? THIS is how you dance foxtrot?’ ”
He laughed uncomfortably. “No, that’s just...I was kidding.”
I made a disgusted noise. “No, you were NOT kidding.”
He cupped my face in his hands, saying, “yes, I was!” then dropped his hands and continued, “trust me. If I wasn’t kidding, I wouldn’t be there.”
“It didn’t seem like you were kidding. I was not having fun at ALL.”
“Really!?”
“Well, yeah!”
“But - ”
“Because it sure seemed like you were serious.”
“But - you just misunderstood me.”
I stepped backwards and looked away, stung by the cliché of the man telling the woman that her feelings aren’t valid because she misinterpreted what he said. Then with an unpleasant flashback to my first marriage, I stepped forward again, resuming eye contact.
“Well, I perceived it - ”
“ - so don’t - ”
Raising my voice and holding up my hands, I spoke over him, “I PERCEIVED it as not kidding.”
“Ah. Ok. No.”
“So Friday night was not fun for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I mean, I didn’t expect the dancing to be great. You had told me you were gonna throw some new moves at me, and I was fine with that - ”
“ - yeah, I wanted to, but then that foxtrot was like - ugh! And you were like - ” He held me in frame and imitated a Leader struggling with a Follower who isn’t moving. “So I was just trying to....”
“It was rough dancing, I know,” I agreed, nodding.
“Right. But just the foxtrot. Nothing else.”
“Weeelllll,” I replied skeptically, “there was the tango - ”
“Nah,” he said, flapping his hand.
“ - the new move, where you were PUTTING me into place - ” I put my arm around his waist and demonstrated.
“Oh! Yeah-yeah-yeah! Of course! Because look - when I tried - and you were - and I was like, hold on, ok, let me get her - because we - I couldn’t - ” He imitated what he had done Friday night, laughing a little.
I went on. “And then there was the Viennese waltz! The first time was good, because I managed to follow you - ”
“Right. I did a lot of tops in a row and you stayed right with me. That was really good.”
“ - but the second time we did Viennese waltz, you led that new move - ”
“ - ah, yes, sliding doors - ”
“ - where we sway to the right, in cuddle position, and I started to come in this way,” I demonstrated, “and you grabbed my arm like this - ” I imitated my ending position, where his arms acted as a straitjacket.
“Because, you see, I thought we were going to do that twice.”
“Well, clearly I didn’t remember that.”
“Exactly!”
He suddenly scooped me up in both arms and dipped me waaaay backwards over his left leg. [
Aside: I think that must be a dance teacher’s way of relieving tension. Or maybe trying to change the subject.]
Despite being distracted by how amazingly cool it felt to be dipped like that, I managed to say, from my unexpectedly horizontal position, “so my POINT is - ”
He interrupted, swinging me back upright, “ - and that’s what I’m saying. So - ”
I spoke over him again, but quietly this time, resting my hands on his shoulders, looking at him intently. “My point is, it’s fine to throw new moves at me, and that was a perfect opportunity to do so - ”
“ - right. Exactly. To see how it - ”
I squeezed his shoulders. “But if you do, just don’t be
glaring at me and saying sarcastic things like ‘really? THIS is how you do it?’ ”
He laughed uncomfortably again. “I mean, that was just a little....”
“I know! I was frustrated too.”
His hands cupped my face again, the dropped as he said defensively, “I wasn’t!”
“Yes you were.”
“No....”
“YES.”
“I mean, I was just a little...you know....”
“I get it. We just had a lesson the day before, you were probably thinking, ‘why can’t she do this?’ ”
“Right. Ok, a little bit. Not like ‘she should’ - more like, ‘why can’t - ’ Ehhh...” he trailed off. “I don’t know.”
“I have a theory.”
“Ok...?”
“This happens to me sometimes when I’m learning a new language. I have a really good ear. So I can pronounce things very, very well.”
“Yes. Right.”
“So people make the mistake of thinking I’m fluent, but - even though I can SPEAK really well - ”
“Ah...right!”
“So...I think maybe once in a while, I do something really well in dance.”
He laughed. “Yes, definitely.”
“And so you think I
know it. You think I did it on
purpose, and that I have control over my body. But in fact,” I shrugged, “I got lucky.”
He nodded. “I mean, I thought - I forget, you see? Because I’m focusing only on the good things. So I’m like, ‘ok - she got it - let’s bring that further up.’ Not like, ‘hold on, I think that was just an accident, forget it, she probably doesn’t know it.’ I don’t think like that.”
“No, of course not. But now that I’ve explained it to you - ”
“Right. No expectations.”
“Well, no - of
course I want you to have expectations of me.”
“And I always will. Because I know what you are capable of.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
And then, because it felt like that discussion had gone reasonably well, and because I was still feeling calm (not angry, weepy, or whiny), I decided to go ahead and bring up the other issue that has been bothering me; i.e., his behavior wrt to our recent participation in my very first comp. But that part of our discussion belongs in a different thread. So -
To Be Continued Elsewhere...
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