the best things happen while you're dancing....

Last night, the Gillefonds returned to the ballroom!

In DC, we took ballroom & latin dance at Arthur Murray in Silver Spring, MD for about 15 months.  It started as a way to avoid the "clutch and sway" dance moves so popular between married couples as the traditional first dance.  We knew our song (Al Green, "let's stay together") and just needed some moves.  We thought it would be cool to be super ballroom.  We had no idea how in love with dance we would become!  A few lessons turned into bi-weekly private instruction with 3-4 group classes per week.  We learned foxtrot, waltz, club swing, triple swing, tango, cha-cha, rumba, salsa, merengue, samba.  We made some great friends too.  Not surprisingly, Reg was quite popular with the older ladies, and became famous for his "cuban motion."  And, I have to say in the name of vanity, my back muscles were amazing!  Try holding that frame through 2 hours of Viennese waltzing and see what it does to your lats!

video taken of us and our guests, dancing the waltz at our wedding, courtesy of our phenomenal DJ, Jeremy Ganss.  We were definitely still waltz novices, but come on- look at how that dress moves! :-)

Unfortunately, dance was one of those luxuries (along with weekly sushi dates, foreign travel, and shopping for fall fashions) that was pushed to the side when we quit our jobs and moved to Pittsburgh.  While we've loved living in the 'Burgh, and I'm still very happy with my decision to pursue a PhD, the paycut Reg took was not insignificant, and, well, I'm a student, so basically just dead weight.

Since I have completed my coursework requirement for the PhD, my evenings are free again.  The last few weeks have been wonderful- there are so many hours in the day when you don't follow the 8 spent in the lab with another 3 in lecture! The local community college offers community classes, and this semester, Intermediate Ballroom & Latin is being offered.  It's only $69/person, for 10 weeks of 1.5hr weekly classes.  We figured it was a good deal and enrolled.

Last night was the first class.  We were nervous we'd be the only ones in "real" ballroom dance shoes, and were filled with all of the normal first day of school jitters- will they like us? will we be good enough? what if we can't remember anything?

Of course, we were the youngest there.  About 5 other couples were in the class, with a mean age of probably 50.  We were also not the only ones with real dance shoes.  The instructor was an old Polish man who wore khaki shorts and black knee socks (pulled all the way up, of course).  He was actually pretty jerky.  Instead of encouraging us all to dance, and welcoming us back, he yelled at the group for not taking dance seriously enough, and for needing demonstration of steps we should have learned in the Beginner level.  I would like to say in the group's defense, that once reminded, everyone knew all of the steps.  But could we all independently recall the magic left turn? Not immediately (Reggie is correcting me to say that he in fact could remember the magic left turn, without demonstration).  I made friends by rolling my eyes behind the instructor's back, and commiserating with my fellow dancers as we passed on the floor.  The instructor loosened up halfway through, and it ended up being a really enjoyable evening.  As always, I never want to switch partners and wish I could only dance with Reg all night!  The best part was that Reggie was singled out as being the best swing dancer!  He had to demonstrate for the group- woohooo Reg!  We left feeling rejuvenated and excited about dance again.  It also made me really miss our time at Arthur Murray, and DC in general.

I'm really looking forward to dancing more.  We covered the foxtrot, triple swing, and tango last night.  The "advanced" class came in after ours and we watched them dance steps we already knew, so we may stay for that class as well.

All of that excitement and we were still home to catch most of Monday Night Football. A perfect way to start the week!