Let the fancy footwork begin

We started the dance classes this evening. We were late (of course) but it didn't seem to matter too much, and we were soon foot tapping and stepping with the best of them.

Actually, it was a bit slow, there were far too many people in the room and the girl to my right kept getting the steps wrong and stepping on my foot. It has potential though.

I thought understanding singing directions in Polish was hard; little did I know! At least when you're in a choir you can look over your neighbour's shoulder and listen to what others are singing. If you open your mouth, nobody even knows you've lost your place. Dancing's not quite the same though. If you mess up a step it's right out there in the open for everybody to see and those people not madly concentrating on their own feet are all witnesses.

There were a couple of interesting characters in our group tonight: an older couple. As the group was so huge, there was very little talking during the dancing; just the shuffling of feet, the instructor's voice counting out the beats and the music in the background. Every so often though there'd be this furious half-whisper from the woman: 'Listen to what he's saying for God's sake, you're not doing it right!' The man would shoot a startled glance back and try to hide behind a neighbour while attempting to get his legs and feet coordinated. 'You're not taking it seriously, are you?' the raised whispering continued, 'stop doing that thing with your arms, nobody dances holding their arms like that' . To be fair, the guy was doing a rather weird thing with his arms, but poor thing! He exchanged a few sympathetic looks with guys who looked equally uncomfortable with the moves, and tried his best to keep up.

I hope the numbers will decrease as the course gets harder, and that we'll be floating around the room in pairs soon. We learned some basic steps for a couple of dances but the men and women were in two big groups rather than partnered up.

I also hope that guy improves enough to satisfy the whispering woman, otherwise things are going to get very difficult for him... and we'll all have to listen to it.