Middle-Aged Moves

A Work in Progress

By Rochelle Lockridge

I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I don’t like it! And just in case you missed it, let me say it one more time. I do NOT like this it’s-okay-to-be-a-work-in-progress philosophy with ballroom dancers. I mean, I can accept being a work in progress when it comes to group classes or with my private lesson teacher in a practice room. But I’m having a VERY hard time embracing this whole idea while on the showcase dance floor. (Note: I honestly thought I was okay with being a work in progress with my instructor until I started reviewing videos of our lessons from over six months ago. Not so much now.) I’ve been asking myself, “Rochelle, why is this such a big deal all of the sudden?”. As much as I can tell, it’s been brought on by performing my first showcase solo, a lovely choreographed DVIDA full bronze waltz routine, in combination with the sudden ending of twenty-six years of salaried employment, and deciding to start my own management consulting business all in the span of one month. I didn’t and don’t feel as prepared as I want to be for any of these, let alone all three at once.

For someone at my level a studio showcase is on par with a dance competition. Why should this type of performance be any different than when I’m playing my guitar and singing a duet with my daughter at church? I practice. She practices. WE practice. Then we bring it all together with a finished performance. It doesn’t matter if we’re singing at a small summer service or a big three-service Sunday. We know we are prepared to perform. But evidently performing your best on the dance floor means different things at different times. I’ve heard it’s common to change your routine the week before a “smaller” less important competition so you can try it out on the dance floor before the “big” competition. What? Why is there a difference in how prepared you feel you need to be for different competitions? A performance is a performance is a performance in my book. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like practicing in public.

And my work-in-progress laments don’t end there. To make matters worse, my ego snuck in during the last showcase and compared my less-than-perfect dancing to everybody else's. GRRRR!!! That’s one of the first things the dance teachers advise us: “Don’t compare yourself to anybody else. It’s YOUR journey, and you should only compare yourself to your own earlier performances.” So far I’ve been pretty good at heeding that advice. I did just fine with my first two showcases. Why my ego decided to rear its ugly head this time around is a mystery. Thankfully, by the end of the evening I had shoved the green-eyed monster back into the closet, stopped comparing myself to others, and could fully enjoy the performances of the other wonderful work-in-progress dancers on the floor. (I’ll be honest here. I’m not as “enlightened” as that statement might lead one to believe. I only really started feeling better when my daughter came to find me and was beaming at how graceful her mother looked out on the dance floor.)

As my friends, family and any studio-goer having asked me “How’s it going?” lately can attest, I have not been shy about expressing my opinions about this it’s-okay-to-be-a-work-in-progress point of view. It was little solace when Neli, a 2015 National Pre-Championship Standard Gold Medalist who’s been dancing in ballroom competitions since the age of ten, shared that everyone feels like things would be better if they only had another two to three weeks of practice before a competition. Then my private teacher attempted to ease my distress by explaining, “WE dance the best WE can with where WE are both at. That’s all we can do.”

So, if I understand this correctly, if I don’t know the steps or routine well enough or can’t do the styling correctly (or at all in some cases), then that’s where WE are at, and WE do the best we can with what WE have for that performance. I can almost accept this logic, but I still don’t like it; especially when MY skills are the limiting factor.

My way of fixing this situation would be to practice, practice, practice. But it’s called partner dancing for a reason; there happens to be a partner involved. No matter how much I practice on my own, on the performance dance floor ballroom dancing is a duet, not a solo. And when my dance partner is also my professional dance instructor, who gets paid by the hour, I have quite a dilemma. If I could prepare the way I prepare for a singing gig, I’d not only practice in private, I’d practice with my instructor almost every day for a couple of weeks leading up to a showcase. But I’m not independently wealthy, and there’s no trust fund to pay for the hours of practice that I feel I need to be performance ready for a competition at this stage in my dance journey.

Hey…. Wait… Stop the presses! Maybe I can change my perspective here and think of dancing at a showcase more like jamming with my guitar friends or improvising with a group of fellow musicians on stage. Yeah… that could work. I privately practice my chords, scales, and strums (or steps and figures in the case of dance), and when we get together the music/dance makes itself. Isn’t that what social dancing is about anyway? Especially one of my favorites, the West Coast Swing? There are basic steps upon which we build and play with each new partner and each new song. The dance itself is a work in progress. And look how popular the Jack & Jill competitions are, where a dance partner is randomly chosen for you by pulling a name out of a hat to improvise and co-create a very public performance in the moment. It’s not perfect. They’re not perfect. That’s why I like it so much. I enjoy creating the dance in the moment with my partner, quickly improvising to recover/incorporate a botched/unexpected move or to creatively respond to something my partner has just done. As long as there continues to be a strong connection and we both get back to our anchor step at about the same time, it’s all good in my eyes.

Well… Guess what? I have a chance to put my money where my mouth is for the next Dancers Studio showcase in September. I’ve been planning to celebrate my one-year anniversary of private lessons with a West Coast Swing solo since I started working with Troy last August. Will my WCS it’s-okay-to-be-a-work-in-progress attitude be strong enough to carry over into the rest of our dancing during the showcase? I don’t know. But I’d venture to bet there’s a pretty high probability that after our solo you’ll be hearing, “I liked it. I liked it. I LOVED IT!” as we walk off the dance floor smiling with Etta James singing the blues still ringing in our ears.