Spaghetti Arms
I remember awhile back I asked if anyone knew if $45 per dance lesson was a reasonable price, and most weren't sure. Well, I've found out it's a very reasonable price - at least out here.
There aren't many dance places out here, most of the dance places are for teaching kids to dance or doing recitals and stuff. But I did find a handful or so of places. The first place I called was the studio offering the lessons for $45. I called sort of late, but not too late, but the lady who answered kind of sounded out of it and almost answered every question I asked as if she wasn't sure herself what she was saying. I try not to judge people too harshly over the phone since I suck on it. Still her responses didn't fill me with a lot of confidence. I told her I would think about it and decided to call the other places before we made a decision.
The second place I called had an ad that the first lesson would be for $25. I wanted to know what it would be for the lessons after that. A woman answered and she was super helpful and was really excited when I told her what song we decided on. She suggested the types of dances we could do. I liked her better than the first woman I talked to - only problem was that after the first lesson the price would go up to $70 a lesson. I told her I would think about it.
I called the other places I found and each time the prices got higher and higher up into the hundreds. So I basically narrowed it down to the two places I called first. Normally, I would just go with the cheaper option, but I just liked the second lady that I talked to better. I talked to Michael about it and he left the decision up to me, but he had no problem with going with the more expensive option, mostly because he figured we'd only need one lesson. I was doubtful of that. I said we'd probably need 2...maybe three. He figured we didn't need that many because we're just trying not to embarrass ourselves, not audition for Dancing With the Stars.
So we did decide to go with the second lady, Suzanne. We had her first lesson. Side note - she had the cutest, friendliest cat there. Kind of made me re-think my stance about exclusively being a dog person. I've just had a better experience with dogs being friendlier. But Mike's always said that it depends on the cat. Which makes sense because it's the same with dogs. We have two dogs and one is ridiculously friendly and affectionate and the other really isn't. I like Suzanne's cat so much that I asked her what type of cat she had, in case I ever wanted one like that in the future.
During the first lesson, all I could think of was Dirty Dancing. That's not really a surprise since I always adored that movie. I remember how excited I got when the movie premiered on HBO on my eight birthday. I got up super early and saw the very end of it and instantly loved it. The whole family watched it when it "officially" premiered later that night and I loved it even more. Other than a brief period when I was 13 and was starting to get a little sick of it, I've always loved it.
I didn't know how the dance lesson would go and, even though she was enthusiastic on the phone, she was a lot more enthusiastic in person. I usually don't react well to people like that, but it wasn't too bad. She started dancing with me, which I wasn't expecting. Immediately I started thinking of the dance montages in DD when Lisa would dance directly with Baby. She also had Mike dancing behind us when she danced with me, so that reminded me of it as well.
When she had Mike and I dancing together one of the first things she corrected was our posture and arm placement. And of course my mind jumped to "Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don't go into yours, you don't go into mine."
We decided to do the dance to the bolero. She said that we could the samba, but the bolero was slower and easier. She taught us the basic and one other move. Mike was a really fast learner and picked up the steps a lot faster than I did. I think it helps that he's done sports like martial arts and is comfortable moving his body. Then again maybe not since a lot of athletes on Dancing With the Stars have been absolutely horrible.
It went so well that it seemed like maybe Mike was right and we could do just one lesson. But she talked about adding another move and when she showed it to us, I wanted to do it. So we decided to do at least one more lesson to polish the moves we learned and add the other one.
We went home and practiced right away. The only real problem was we didn't really have a space to practice. Our room is too small - the bed pretty much takes up most of the space. We didn't really have that much room in the living room and I don't think either one of us wanted to deal with his grandmother's potential whining if we played music and started practicing there. The only place we could think to do it was outside in the gravelly courtyard. We practiced in socks, but Mike didn't want to go outside in just socks because of bugs. So I wore my sneakers the first time we practiced, but I didn't like the way it felt.
The second time we practiced I wore socks, but that didn't work because one of the socks kept coming all the way off and messing us up. I finally found these shoes, I guess his mom must have gotten them for me because I don't remember buying them and they were pink, that looked kind of like cleats but without that stuff on the bottom. They seemed like the best option since they weren't full on sneakers, but not socks either. They've worked all right. The courtyard is adequate, but there's one move we have to do where do the basic and slowly slide our foot back into position and I can't do it right on the surface of the courtyard.
Mike decided to film our practices, just in case we forget our moves after practicing, which did happen after the second lesson. She added the new move which was a cross body lead with a spin. It took us a long time after that lesson to get home and by the time we practiced he wasn't sure how he was supposed to move and I wasn't either. We tried to find a video to help on YouTube, but there weren't many bolero ones on there.
We decided to have our third lesson a couple of days after that (we had our second lesson a week after the first) so we wouldn't mess anything up while we practiced. She added a third move in at the very end, but Mike picked it up well enough that he didn't feel we'd need anymore lessons after that. It helped that after the third lesson we felt more confident in our practice that we know the moves. At times we were both getting frustrated because we weren't getting some of the moves correctly.
We filmed another of our practices a couple of days ago and watched it back. We both think we definitely have work to do to get it better, but if the wedding was tomorrow we could do a good enough job to not embarrass ourselves. I still would like maybe one more practice to perfect, or really let her show us how it's "properly" done, plus we're trying to work on a final move where he spins me and dips me at the very end of the song and that definitely needs some work. I also wouldn't mind knowing another dance besides the bolero, since I told Mike I want to dance to at least five songs at the wedding and probably not all of them are bolero dances.
One of the main things we have to work on is both of us are very serious while we're practicing and we need to add some smiles so it doesn't like we've just gone to a funeral or something.
Even though Mike doesn't want to do a fourth lesson, he did mention that he thinks that maybe after we get everything paid up after the wedding that maybe we could take more lessons. He thinks it's a fun thing we can do together, so that's really nice. Though $70 a lesson is still a lot.
Stacey
There aren't many dance places out here, most of the dance places are for teaching kids to dance or doing recitals and stuff. But I did find a handful or so of places. The first place I called was the studio offering the lessons for $45. I called sort of late, but not too late, but the lady who answered kind of sounded out of it and almost answered every question I asked as if she wasn't sure herself what she was saying. I try not to judge people too harshly over the phone since I suck on it. Still her responses didn't fill me with a lot of confidence. I told her I would think about it and decided to call the other places before we made a decision.
The second place I called had an ad that the first lesson would be for $25. I wanted to know what it would be for the lessons after that. A woman answered and she was super helpful and was really excited when I told her what song we decided on. She suggested the types of dances we could do. I liked her better than the first woman I talked to - only problem was that after the first lesson the price would go up to $70 a lesson. I told her I would think about it.
I called the other places I found and each time the prices got higher and higher up into the hundreds. So I basically narrowed it down to the two places I called first. Normally, I would just go with the cheaper option, but I just liked the second lady that I talked to better. I talked to Michael about it and he left the decision up to me, but he had no problem with going with the more expensive option, mostly because he figured we'd only need one lesson. I was doubtful of that. I said we'd probably need 2...maybe three. He figured we didn't need that many because we're just trying not to embarrass ourselves, not audition for Dancing With the Stars.
So we did decide to go with the second lady, Suzanne. We had her first lesson. Side note - she had the cutest, friendliest cat there. Kind of made me re-think my stance about exclusively being a dog person. I've just had a better experience with dogs being friendlier. But Mike's always said that it depends on the cat. Which makes sense because it's the same with dogs. We have two dogs and one is ridiculously friendly and affectionate and the other really isn't. I like Suzanne's cat so much that I asked her what type of cat she had, in case I ever wanted one like that in the future.
During the first lesson, all I could think of was Dirty Dancing. That's not really a surprise since I always adored that movie. I remember how excited I got when the movie premiered on HBO on my eight birthday. I got up super early and saw the very end of it and instantly loved it. The whole family watched it when it "officially" premiered later that night and I loved it even more. Other than a brief period when I was 13 and was starting to get a little sick of it, I've always loved it.
I didn't know how the dance lesson would go and, even though she was enthusiastic on the phone, she was a lot more enthusiastic in person. I usually don't react well to people like that, but it wasn't too bad. She started dancing with me, which I wasn't expecting. Immediately I started thinking of the dance montages in DD when Lisa would dance directly with Baby. She also had Mike dancing behind us when she danced with me, so that reminded me of it as well.
When she had Mike and I dancing together one of the first things she corrected was our posture and arm placement. And of course my mind jumped to "Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don't go into yours, you don't go into mine."
We decided to do the dance to the bolero. She said that we could the samba, but the bolero was slower and easier. She taught us the basic and one other move. Mike was a really fast learner and picked up the steps a lot faster than I did. I think it helps that he's done sports like martial arts and is comfortable moving his body. Then again maybe not since a lot of athletes on Dancing With the Stars have been absolutely horrible.
It went so well that it seemed like maybe Mike was right and we could do just one lesson. But she talked about adding another move and when she showed it to us, I wanted to do it. So we decided to do at least one more lesson to polish the moves we learned and add the other one.
We went home and practiced right away. The only real problem was we didn't really have a space to practice. Our room is too small - the bed pretty much takes up most of the space. We didn't really have that much room in the living room and I don't think either one of us wanted to deal with his grandmother's potential whining if we played music and started practicing there. The only place we could think to do it was outside in the gravelly courtyard. We practiced in socks, but Mike didn't want to go outside in just socks because of bugs. So I wore my sneakers the first time we practiced, but I didn't like the way it felt.
The second time we practiced I wore socks, but that didn't work because one of the socks kept coming all the way off and messing us up. I finally found these shoes, I guess his mom must have gotten them for me because I don't remember buying them and they were pink, that looked kind of like cleats but without that stuff on the bottom. They seemed like the best option since they weren't full on sneakers, but not socks either. They've worked all right. The courtyard is adequate, but there's one move we have to do where do the basic and slowly slide our foot back into position and I can't do it right on the surface of the courtyard.
Mike decided to film our practices, just in case we forget our moves after practicing, which did happen after the second lesson. She added the new move which was a cross body lead with a spin. It took us a long time after that lesson to get home and by the time we practiced he wasn't sure how he was supposed to move and I wasn't either. We tried to find a video to help on YouTube, but there weren't many bolero ones on there.
We decided to have our third lesson a couple of days after that (we had our second lesson a week after the first) so we wouldn't mess anything up while we practiced. She added a third move in at the very end, but Mike picked it up well enough that he didn't feel we'd need anymore lessons after that. It helped that after the third lesson we felt more confident in our practice that we know the moves. At times we were both getting frustrated because we weren't getting some of the moves correctly.
We filmed another of our practices a couple of days ago and watched it back. We both think we definitely have work to do to get it better, but if the wedding was tomorrow we could do a good enough job to not embarrass ourselves. I still would like maybe one more practice to perfect, or really let her show us how it's "properly" done, plus we're trying to work on a final move where he spins me and dips me at the very end of the song and that definitely needs some work. I also wouldn't mind knowing another dance besides the bolero, since I told Mike I want to dance to at least five songs at the wedding and probably not all of them are bolero dances.
One of the main things we have to work on is both of us are very serious while we're practicing and we need to add some smiles so it doesn't like we've just gone to a funeral or something.
Even though Mike doesn't want to do a fourth lesson, he did mention that he thinks that maybe after we get everything paid up after the wedding that maybe we could take more lessons. He thinks it's a fun thing we can do together, so that's really nice. Though $70 a lesson is still a lot.
Stacey