Rumba Dance Exhibition, Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Or PANIC IN THE TRENCHES

Thursday night (April 8), Dennis got a call from the president of the Ocala Dance Club.  The message simply said, "Call me".  I asked Den if he had any idea what it might be about; did he think maybe someone had complained that we had been too affectionate on the dance floor, or something.  Of course, he didn't know.

So Friday the 9th, he talks with Joe and Joe asks if Den would do a dance exhibition for the club.  The couple who had been scheduled, cancelled.  The performance would be on Tuesday night, the 13th.  Well, Dennis doesn't say no very well, so he figured he could call me and I'd say it for him.  We danced around it for a bit with, "Well, do you want to do it?"  "I don't know, what do you want to do?"  Finally, I said if he thought we could do it without embarrassing ourselves, I would try.

Dennis left a message for our dance instructor, Trish, to please call, but she didn't.  So, Friday night we wrote down a list of all the moves we have in rumba, three of which we had just been shown in our intermediate rumba class on Thursday night.  We didn't really HAVE the moves, we just had an idea of how they worked.  Then we put everything we knew together in a string.

Saturday the 10th we practiced again but since we hadn't heard from Trish, Den called Joe Mounts, another ballroom dance teacher.  He returned the call immediately and said he'd come to my house on Sunday to help us.  Bless his heart.

Sunday the 11th, we had at least a very full hour with Joe.  He cleaned up my turns, showed me how to do one of the new moves correctly, and tweaked the ending.  Then we practiced for another couple of hours.

Monday the 12th, I kept working on my turns and the move called fan and hockey stick.  I wasn't stepping correctly although sometimes I'd get it right.  I wasn't happy with that, so I repeated it until the right way was the only way I could do it.  Practice, practice, practice.  We got together again that night and worked on it until we did it three times without messing up.

On Tuesday morning, 7:45, Trish called Den and told him she forbid him using the new moves she had just shown us in class the previous week.  She said, "Linda doesn't have the footwork or the turns and she has no styling.  It will look ridiculous."  Den said, "Okay."  Of course, it was too late to change anything.  And then it was showtime.

I didn't have time to get nervous.  I just did it.  

Dennis is such a good dancer, he makes me look much better than I am.  His leads were perfect and he remembered the sequence of moves.  We had a good time while we were performing and I think it showed.  I enjoy dancing with him so much.

It was funny how the men admired the way he rose slowly from the kneeling position with only my finger under his chin.  And it was impressive.  He's very fit and his legs are really strong for any age, much less 60.