First Dance?

Who'd a thought the first dance would be the thing that ended up causing me more stress than pretty much everything else relating to the wedding, potentially more than everything else combined!

Months ago we agreed to take some dance lessons, partly for the wedding, but more so that I can actually do more than fumble through any dance, especially seeing how much we both enjoy it. Unfortunately, Angel has had a head start and knows a lot of the dances that we would look at. The first stab was taking salsa lessons. We went to a dance studio where we took a group lesson every Saturday for a month. Angel took the intermediate class and I was relegated to 'Salsa for dummies'. The classes were fun, and I did manage to pick up at least the basics, but did I then put it to use? Nope, never initiated an evening out to go dancing, so forgot a lot of it.

About 2 or 3 months ago we go an offer for a free private lesson at a local dance studio, so we took them up on the offer. We had one hour with Luis, who is a sweet old man with tattoed eyebrows (I kid you not). We did the basics of the Waltz, the Foxtrot, East Coast Swing and maybe something else, can't remember. Anyway, was a lot to take in for one hour.

We then signed up for a set of three lessons a couple of weeks ago at the same place, with the same teacher. We decided to focus on Waltz and Swing, with more of a focus on Waltz as that was what we figured to do for the first dance. The lessons were fun (we just had the last one last night) but the teaching style was maybe not the best for me. Everytime I screwed up he would shout at me, causing me to stress out more, losing my step more and I would have to stop and regroup. Angel would get more and more annoyed because I kept stopping instead of just keep on going, trying to regain the step. It all culminated last night. We had selected a potential list of 5 songs, and they were all a much faster Waltz than the ones we had done before. Result was I was having a hard time getting the steps, and combinations. Luis shouting that I was doing it wrong, as well as trying to give me the tempo of '1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3...' except he routinely did it off beat resulting in me getting confused and he would then shout that I got it wrong.

Well needless to say I just got more and more stressed out and Angel got more and more annoyed. Finally we got to the point were we just ignored him, and I tried to just listen to the music and work with Angel, which worked a lot better.

WOW... this has been a little rant right? Well, not over yet...

I need to practice, and will be doing so with Angel, but last night I nearly just crumbled and walked out, but managed to make it through... Now if I screw up on the day of the wedding, I ask only one thing.... Have a laugh at my expense and let me fumble my way through it, cause there is a distinct possibility that if you don't, I could end up in a crumpled ball under a table in the corner rocking myself (off beat of course) with a drink in hand repeating my mantra of '1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3.. MUST BREATHE... 1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3...'