Christine and Christopher Piss Off the Dance Teacher

Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Christine.
Categories: True Story.

We knew it was going to happen sooner or later, right? At some point, the CVC couple would find a way to draw attention– perhaps one might label as “negative” attention– to ourselves as we progress down the road of life-long learning in the pursuit of learning how to ballroom dance. Last night, on the third Wednesday of our class, it finally happened.

Let me give you the backstory. Last year, Christopher agreed to take a ballroom dance class with me. So I found a class that started in January and went for 9 weeks, one hour a week, on Wednesday nights. Because of my work schedule (I’m usually in meetings until fairly late) and because of the dances that we would learn, I chose this specific class which happened to be “for singles” because the “couples” class had different dances and started earlier in the evening.

So the first night, we get to the campus of the “adult” school where the class is to be held and my registration paper says to go to the auditorium. There is no auditorium. There was a “cafeteria” which had lots and lots of Asian and Latino people sitting around outside. Christopher says to me that he thinks maybe that’s the class.

“No…” I say. “That looks like a citizenship class or something.” So we walk around a little more, decide to come back and actually ask what class those 75 people were standing in line for, and turns out… it’s our dance class. So we go in.

The instructor is an overweight, completely bald white guy with ambiguous sexual orientation who wears all black (perhaps to make himself look thinner, perhaps it’s just his favorite color– we’ll probably never know). He seems nice enough despite the fact that he spends a considerable amount of time using all of us as a captive audience to plug his own dance studio and gives us the run-down of class offerings and prices, wowing us with the incredible bargain of private dance lessons with him for $80 an hour. Whatever. I just don’t want Christopher to get so annoyed that he’ll never want to come back.

We learn the basic steps of the waltz. Box step. One-two-three, one-two-thee. Pretty easy, so far, so good. But because this is a singles class, our instructor has organized it so that all the men stand in five lines, you dance with your partner for about one minute, then the music pauses and all the women move to their left to dance with a new partner. Not a bad system, especially if you move on to someone who has taken the class before and is a decent dancer, or isn’t “creepy” (there are a few of those including the old guy with long stringy hair, crossed-eyes, and a ball cap). So we manage to follow the directions, we each dance with several different people, and all seems well with the exception of Christopher’s complaint that it’s hard to dance with some of the Asian women who are literally about 4 feet tall.

Night two goes equally well. We continue working on the waltz, add a turn and learn how to progress across the floor. Christopher and I are probably above average dancers compared to the rest of the group and we are feeling confident. Christopher ends up dancing with a tall (my height) Asian woman with braces. She doesn’t let him lead, he tells her that she needs to let him lead, it’s questionable whether or not she understood what he was saying, and the next week (week 3) she comes to class wearing pink cotton gloves that she takes off and puts back on whenever we all get in line to dance. Do the gloves have anything to do with personal contact with Christopher? We’re not sure but decide that the pink gloves probably aid all involved.

So last night was week 3. It turns out that a whole bunch of people missed week 2 and the instructor decides we should spend some time reviewing the turn and progression for those people. So we do the practice thing and find a partner. Christopher and I start doing our thing, and quite frankly, we’re having a lot of fun. We’re doing just fine with the steps and turns and progression, and Christopher manages to make sure we don’t bump in to anyone else on the overcrowded auditorium/cafeteria dance floor. But unlike other couples who don’t know each other at all and are obviously quite uncomfortable looking into each others’ faces, Christopher and I are chatting as we dance, smiling, joking, actually enjoying doing this together. So… the teacher pauses the music and thinking we’re going to stop, I miss a step just as Christopher raises his arm so we can finish on a turn. I start to go into the turn, realize I’m now off beat, and stop. Christopher still has my hand and laughing he shouts (fairly loud) “You gotta go!” He grabs my other arm and pushes me into the turn, slapping my ass as I spin around. As I come out of the turn half dizzy, I’m laughing and he’s laughing and… everyone else is completely quiet. I’m still facing Christopher who looks past me at the teacher who is apparently glaring at us.

“Oh shit…” Christopher whispers, “He just saw that and didn’t think it was funny.” We will soon find out that Christopher’s assessment of the teacher’s reaction was dead-on.

The guy doesn’t say anything to us… just tells the women to go to one side of the room and the men to go to the other and we’re going to start on east coast swing. After a convoluted explanation about how west-coast swing is a derivative of a bunch of other dead dances and was probably not the type of dancing they used to do at “The Derby” (you know… that club the guys go to in “Swingers”), he teaches us the steps for the guys, then the steps for the girls. But it turns out that when we all get back with our partners, the steps don’t match together very well. Christopher can’t figure out what he’s supposed to be doing while I’m doing my turn. He and I try to walk through it together slowly to figure it out, but our minute ends and we are told to step down and get a new partner.

Christopher says, “Stay here. I don’t know how to do this yet.” I tell him okay and we continue to try to figure out where he’s supposed to put his feet, not realizing that the woman on the left side of us didn’t just skip over us and take the man to our right. She’s standing there like a moron, confused, as is the guy on our other side and basically, because of me not moving down and letting the woman to the right have Christopher as a partner, we’ve screwed up the entire line.

Now the teacher is convinced that not only do Christopher and I not listen to directions, we don’t take his class seriously. So… he stops the music and launches into this diatribe about how these are simple instructions, no one is allowed to keep the same partner, and would we rather spend our time dancing or would we rather spend our time getting organized like a bunch of second graders.

It was, let’s just say, a little over the top. And my first reaction is to raise my hand and say “Actually, I’d rather spend time hearing more about the private dance lessons you offer at your studio.” But fearing we might actually get kicked out, I just look at Christopher the way, yes, a third-grader might look at her friend who she just got busted passing a note to when the teacher was talking.

Having ended on the question about would we rather spend time dancing or getting organized, the guy waits. As if it weren’t a rhetorical question and he actually wants someone to answer it. Finally some guy says, “Let’s dance.” And that’s when I realize the teacher wasn’t waiting for an answer, he was waiting for me to move to the next guy which I still hadn’t done because I was standing in front of Christopher.

“I gotta go, babe,” I say to Chris and move on. Chris, not a happy camper at this point, goes and sits down right behind me. Not about to try to dance with someone else when he isn’t being given time to figure out the steps, he takes himself out of the equation. Teacher sees this and doesn’t say anything.

So I’m dancing with a super good swing dancer while Christopher sits behind me, talking to a lady, and the music stops, I move on, he decides not to get back up. So when that part is over, the teacher tells everyone to take a seat because he’s invited some “good” dancers (what a surprise– from his very own studio) to come and demonstrate for us. As the teacher dances the tango with the first girl, we’re all sitting there watching and out of nowhere, while he’s dancing, he says with this note of admonishment in his voice, “You know it’s okay to clap.” So, like the third graders we are, we all break into applause for him and his partner. And not really sure when or why were were supposed to clap, we wait a few moments and then a few people start to clap again, and we follow along.

I lean over to Chris. “I think the teacher is in a pissy mood.”

Chris says, “I think we might be the reason why. He wasn’t very happy about me slapping your ass. Oh well. Fuck him.”

So we sit there and watch the two ladies dance and clap when they’re done and the teacher announces the class is over. Everyone starts to filter out and we walk to the car, concluding the third of nine dance classes.

Can’t wait to see what next week will bring…

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