Where’s my dancing shoes?
It’s 12:46 am here and I just got back from a dance hall with my cousin Cecil. We checked out this place called Starlight Dance Center in Nutley, NJ (around 10 miles away) to inquire about taking Ballroom dancing lessons. We were going to join a class as guests before deciding if we will sign up. As you may all know, I used to dance Ballroom in college with one of my orgs, UP Social Dance Club (UPSDC), so it was one of my dreams to continue to learn Ballroom when I got here to the US.
So we got there and talked to the owner who also happens to be the teacher for the class, Katherina and she gave us a tour around the studio.
So we were going to join an International Standard Silver/Gold class. Ok here’s a little explanation of what that means. Ballroom Dancing is mainly divided into to kinds, the Standard dances, which include the Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot & Quickstep, and the Latin dances, Cha Cha Cha, Rhumba, Samba, Paso Doble & Jive. The steps are also arranged into syllabi according to their difficulty, from Bronze to Silver to Gold. Upon learning this, I was very excited because a) I like Standard better than Latin & b) We never really got to go beyond Bronze during my time at UPSDC.
Now as we were waiting for the class to start, we noticed our classmates coming in, mostly old couples around 50s and above. Uh-oh Kuya Cecil and I were expecting the participants to be around our age. And then when the class started, another problem sprang up, there were more guys than girls, meaning we wouldn’t have any partners… My high expectations were one by one not being met and I was sarting to think twice if this was a good Idea. Its a good thing that the class is starting and we would be able to dance finally (me especially).
Right then, we found out that Katherina would not be handling the class. Some guy named Giampiero was going to take over for today since she had something to finish. Bummer.. To make things worse, he starts giving out these lessons, lectures, anecdotes, analogies etc about "learning to learn how to dance" cutting into our time for dancing. In fairness, everything he explained made sense and I learned a couple of things from it but the point is his talking has already consumed 1/3 of our time and we haven’t started dancing yet. Are we gonna dance or not.. nevermind if I don’t have a partner.
Finally after consuming half our alloted time (no thanks to some guys also asking all these worthless questions), we finally got to dancing. Giampiero was giving us a routine for Foxtrot which I did ok I guess (since I had no partner to bump into or step on). But let me tell you "Wow it feels nice to be dancing after 2 years or so."Ü
Later on, I found out that our subsitute teacher was Giampiero Giannico, who is one of the top Standard competitors in the world!!Ü He was in the Top 6 in Blackpool (considered the best dancesport competition in the World) in 2004 and was in the Top 15 last year. I guess it’s like being trained by Pacquiao in cockfighting.. este boxing.. hehe.
Anyway, we signed up for the class ($75 for four weeks, 1.5 hours a week) so I’m now waiting for next Tuesday to arrive. I’m just so happy that things turn out well. I can dance Standard again and a world-class competitor to teach us. For now, I’d better practice.
Slow.. slow.. quick.. quick.. slow..
P.S. Check out their website at www.starlightdancingusa.com and here is a profile of Giampiero Giannico at http://www.dancesportinfo.net/DancerDetails.aspx?Id=5147.
