My dance history

I grew up in rural South Africa – where for the most part there was not much to do in terms of entertainment. So, obviously – we created our own. We danced. Friday and Saturday nights, at the home of whoever was able to convince their parents to let us use their garage (unlike in the USA, back then in SA, we actually used garages to park our cars in, so it was easily accessible).

Now, the dancing – we call it ‘sokkie‘. I’m not sure where it came from and what it was supposed to be, but to describe it, it was somewhat of a mix between several ballroom dances, line dancing and just general moving to the music. From what I can tell, the US version of that is the ‘sock hop‘.

The only dance that was recognizable, was the waltz. We all could waltz. Unfortunately back then – in the 80’s – we didn’t have cellphones with cameras to record this and other shenanigans (thank god), so I can’t show you how we did it. I found this video though, it’ll kind of give you an idea of what it looks like – though we did it much better than the kids here in the 2009 video (obviously)

This continued throughout my young adult years. I lived in Pretoria, South Africa, and there were always ‘sokkies’ to attend. We were practically dancing 4 – 5 nights a week and loving it.

Now fast-forward a couple of years, and suddenly there were husbands, work, after hour college classes, kids and all kinds of stuff and the only dance I was able to do, was trying to dance around all my responsibilities. At some point, I attempted to take a couple of ballroom classes, but not surprisingly, life got in the way and that had to take a backseat.

Around 2002, while living in Atlanta, USA – I discovered a West Coast Swing group and for a couple of weeks I took some lessons. But then I moved, and again, no more dancing. At that point, I just gave up.

Fast-forward again – 2018 – my only offspring has been done with college and doing the adult thing all by herself for a couple of years already, and I found myself moving to Connecticut. My main hobbies at this point were drinking wine and playing poker socially (hence the move to be closer to the Mohegan and Foxwoods casinos), and I suddenly had the bright idea to take up dance lessons again.

Finding Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Mystic

As small as Connecticut is, I managed to find a place to live that’s practically in the middle of nowhere and still close to everything and nothing at all at the same time. I’m not sure how to describe it properly, but if you’ve ever lived up here in New England, I think you’d understand.

I wasn’t sure what type of dancing I wanted to learn – I just knew I wanted to dance, so I didn’t even know exactly what I was looking for. When you start searching for ‘dance classes’, Google assumes you have a 3 year old that you want to enroll in ballet class, or a pre-teen that wants to hip hop. There was no google result for ‘dance studio for middle-aged women who just want to dance’. I was trying to avoid the franchises like Fred Astaire and Arthur Murray because I wasn’t sure that ballroom was exactly what I wanted to do. It turned out I didn’t have a lot of choices around where I live, so I decided to just give it a try. I filled out the form on the website of the closest FADS (Fred Astaire Dance Studio), which was in Mystic, a little town which I have already fell in love with.

A day or two later, I got a call from the studio and scheduled my introductory lessons.

The first lesson was – well, just as described – an introductory. I met Vadim and he showed me the basic steps of the different dances. Some of those came easy – thanks to years of ‘sokkie’ – and I was hooked. I had no doubt that I was going to continue. I loved it. However, to be honest, I wasn’t prepared for the price of lessons. This was going to be a very expensive hobby, but – to quote Marie Kondo – it sparked so much joy for me, I was gonna make it work. I understand now why there are so few young ballroom dancers, it’s simply not that affordable if you have a life and other hobbies as well. It’s a pity, really.

During the first couple of lessons I made a startling discovery. There are mirrors EVERYWHERE in the studio. Given my love for wine and vodka and food and it’s unforgiving effect on my middle-aged body, mirrors everywhere were not really fueling my self-esteem. I had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about the size of my ass. Only the mirrors didn’t know that. (And this is how my relationship with Keto and Intermittent fasting started)

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I quickly learned that mastering the actual steps are the easy part, getting it to look like real ballroom is quite an undertaking. Especially if you’re 50-something, having grown up kind of a tomboy with no natural grace or elegance.

At the time I was updating Facebook with my experiences, so I went and grab those for you. You’ll see what I mean.

So, now you have an idea how my first couple of weeks went!

Preparing for the competition

Truth be told, I got lucky and landed myself some of the best dance teachers in New England and my dance class quickly became the highlight of my week. After a couple of weeks, the topic of a competition came up. Now, by this time I’ve realized that ballroom dancing entails a LOT more than just learning the steps, there’s all kinds of dance technicalities and posture and form and whatnot that all comes together to make a ballroom dancer look great on the dance floor. I also knew I that I was never gonna be one of the greatest, but – and this is not always a good thing – I have a competitive personality and love a challenge, so it didn’t take much for Vadim to convince me to enter my first ballroom competition. Besides, I wanted to feel what it feels like to wear one of those pretty dresses (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it).

Wardrobe for ballroom is another thing I wasn’t prepared for, and I’m not just talking about the competition dresses. Finding the right skirt for practice was quite a challenge. For someone who doesn’t wear dresses/skirt as a rule, finding something I felt somehow comfortable in turned out to be a project all by itself. I ended up buying a skirt from the Fred Astaire Dance Store, asked my friend Gerrie to sew me another, and then I got lucky and found another on Ebay. I would much rather practice in my leggings, but turned out that was not an option. I tried to argue, but gave up. After a couple of lessons, I had to admit, doing all the turns and twirls with a long skirt, really added to the experience.

Then there were the shoes. As you probably can guess (if you didn’t know already), I’m not a shoe/purse/accessory kind of person, so spending a lot of money on shoes (with HEELS nevertheless) – not happening.

Until, of course – it was happening. And happening. And happening again. Finding the right shoe for old feet with bunions turned out to be an expensive adventure by itself. There are no (or at least not where I live) local ‘ballroom dance shoes’ stores, so there is no way to try on the shoes before you buy. You also can’t just buy any pair of shoes – ballroom dance shoes are special in that they have non-slip suede soles and are very light-weight and flexible. Hours of research, having read countless reviews and 5 pairs later, I finally found a pair that worked for me from DanceShopper.

Finding a dress for the competition was the easy part. Since I am obviously not going to do this as a profession, buying a dress wasn’t an option (you’ll understand when you see the prices of these dresses!!) – and I rented a fabulous red dress in which I felt surprisingly comfortable.

Needless to say, hair and make up I decided to leave up to the professionals and made an appointment with the vendor at the competition site for the morning of the competition.

Competition Time!

The competition approached much faster than what I could prepare myself. Combined with the fact that I wasn’t sure what to expect of the competition itself – how to know where to go, what to do, etc, I was quite nervous. I got to the hotel the night before, barely slept because my hair/make up appointment was for 6:30am the next morning, and that was definitely something I couldn’t miss, since my first heat would be at 8am and I most certainly couldn’t do it the way nature intended me to look like in the morning. (It feels weird to think I’ll be ‘dancing’ at 8am in the morning and it’s not in my pajamas and in my kitchen!)

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After hair and makeup I felt a little less nervous, because at least if I mess up, I was sure nobody would recognize me and know it was me. So I had that going for me.

My first heat was at 8am in the morning, and I am not saying that I had a drink before that, but what I can tell you, is that a shot of vodka does wonders for the nerves.

Clarese flew up from Florida to join me and be my moral support, and I couldn’t have been more grateful. Seeing her in the audience and hearing her cheer for me, was wonderfully comforting.

And of course then there was my dance teacher, Vadim – who definitely is one of the most patient men I have ever met, as well as one of the best dancers I’ve ever had the joy of dancing with. With his help, after the first couple of heats, I was much more relaxed and actually started to enjoy it somewhat.

I had a couple of missteps and my posture wasn’t always on point, but hey, nobody’s perfect, right? 🙂 And it was my first time.

At the end of the day I was actually quite happy with my performance given the short amount of time I was actually training for it. Below is a video from the competition, judge for yourself.