Learning to dance – episode 1
Nathalie & I have finally decided to take dance classes. I should mention that I had taken dance classes when I was about 17 (I’m not completely sure anymore) and I still know the different dances, to some extent. But we wanted to harmonize our “dancing-as-a-couple”, to bring our dancing skills to the same level… and so I’ve agreed to start with the beginners course… I remember that back when I was 17 I always had some difficulties to grasp the sequence of movements constituent of a certain dance, so I’m quite glad that I do already “know” (or rather my body knows) all the dances we will see during the classes.
Our first course was yesterday evening. I was quite nervous! Yes, I was! Probably because I’ve had these difficulties in the past with “new dances” and that I would not want to look foolish in front of all these strangers. After all, Nathalie “knows” that I’ve already taken dance classes up to the “advanced level”… and I tend to build up a blockade when I don’t “get the steps” and need some time to “reprogram” my feet, by observing others and to visualize the steps in my mind… and I need to concentrate on an expert then, and cannot stand to see somebody who is really doing it the wrong way…
We’ve started with the “valse lente” and then proceeded to the “Cha-Cha-Cha”. I have got to say that Nathalie seems to get the steps very easily and we’re starting to synchronize very well… That was very beautiful! Of course, it’s still very simple sequences of steps that they show us and that we then copy and reproduce without too much creativity. It’s a bit like painting letters in 1st grade. “Writing texts” will be a bit more difficult… Indeed it’s gonna be more like “co-writing”… and Nathalie tends to try to lead… We’ll have to see… 🙂
I’d like to share one last thought about this first dance course with you… Since I’ve somewhat automatized (not to an expert level, of course) the cha-cha-cha steps, it’s been quite difficult for me to re-de-compose the three steps and to execute them separately and as if they were not “glued together”. That’s an interesting phenomenon I think… Sequences of body movements can become so integrated and tied together that the mind executes them as if they were inseparable. That reminds me of the FIXED ACTION PATTERNS (FAP) of the ethologists, a term they use to describe sequences of motor actions in certain animals that, once activated, are executed as a whole and cannot be split up or used in a flexible and combinatorial way. Geese show such FAP in their “bringing-the-egg-back-to-the-nest” behaviors. To me, this meant some “conscious effort” to re-de-compose the three steps and to execute them in a new way (which is an “old” way in some sense). Happily, quite rapidly, Nathalie and I, when we were asked to train the steps in couples, started to fasten the 3 steps so that they again resembled what I was used to. I’ve experienced a similar thing with the “valse lente”… Normally, when you make a step, the foot you’ve just moved should be the one where all, or most, of your weight is on… So, normally, you can only move the other leg, since it’s the one that’s “free”… However, when I started to think about this and to “consciously” monitor and control what leg I was standing on, my movement became somewhat quirky and awkward… Sometimes I’ve probably better to let “your body do the thing”… However, once you’ve then got a “bad habit”, it will be quite difficult to de-construct it and some “conscious effort” will be needed to un-do it.
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