If you're Latino/Latina, most people assume you're a divine dancer since birth, that everyone in Latin America has perfect rhythm and can dance confidently. As a Latina born with two metaphoric left feet, I always felt like the least skilled person on the dance floor, which meant feeling self-conscious and not enjoying myself that much. At the end of the day, dancing was not fulfilling its purpose of helping me relax and enjoy the music but making me more stressed out.
TRUST
I do remember instances where I felt like a goddess on the dance floor, and they all had one thing in common - I was dancing with people I trusted. I was dancing with people I liked or had been my friends for years. I knew that they would be patient enough to dance with me, show me some tricks that would make us both look cool, and have fun even when I wasn't the best dancer. Over time, dance floor chemistry became a bit of measurement of my level of comfort in my relationships, and how much or how little I felt I could let my guard down.
DANCE CLASS
Fast forward a few years and I met a non-Latino who became my husband. Our first ballroom dancing experience was taking a salsa class. Turns out, his naturally competitive nature translated into a laser-like focus on the instructor's demonstration of each move. By the time our classes were over, my American husband was mastering moves that I wasn't even close to beginning learning.
I asked him how did he get so good so quickly. We went dancing on weekends sometimes, but other than that, he was not taking extra lessons or practicing with me at home. He explained that he simply brought his competitive nature to the dance floor and applied it to something he was interested in doing because it was important to me and he wanted to do together. Seeing him become more confident in his salsa dancing taught me two things: anyone can get better at dancing if they focus and practice and that dancing should be an enjoyable activity. If you're worried that you're going to look like a fool in front of your dance partner, maybe you need a different dance partner.
TRUST + DANCING
Salsa dancing with my husband is one of the multiple ways in which I learned to trust in my relationship. It's also another way in which I learned to relax in my relationship. So what if I miss a few steps? My husband won't love me any less and won't ditch me for a more skilled partner. If he gets more fluent than me on the dance floor, it's just another way in which he gets to surprise me and we can have fun together. Ballroom dancing has been some of the best relationship therapy I've ever had. It showed me a different side of trust. It taught me that expectations are what we make of them. And most of all, it taught me to stop worrying about my two left feet, and enjoy the song while it lasts.
What are you going to learn on the dance floor about yourself? Contact us for more information on our dance lessons. Self-discovery epiphanies not guaranteed. A great time? You bet!