Trust and Ballroom

By Katie, The Girl with the Tree Tattoo

There are three key elements needed for a successful dance partnership, be it in ballroom or another form of dance: physical contact, communication and trust.

Trust is a funny thing. It’s almost like a house of cards, built up slowly over time, but one wrong move can make the entire structure collapse. It’s very fragile, but at the same time, it holds a very strong influence over us. We are willing to give so much of ourselves to those we trust without question.

In ballroom dancing, you have to trust your partner. You have to trust in their ability to dance and lead or follow (depending on your role). On a more emotional level, you have to trust them to respect you as you allow them into your personal space. The physical contact required for ballroom dancing can make you feel extremely vulnerable. It takes trust to ease that feeling and make you feel comfortable enough to dance well.

Everyone has gone through some sort of betrayal or disappointment in their life; broken trust in one person can affect your willingness to trust others. Trust is a huge challenge for me. When I first started with my current teacher, I had a massive wall up. My previous teacher had essentially fired me as a student without explanation. My trust in the dance teacher figure was shattered and I stayed very guarded with my current teacher, just in case he decided to fire me out of the blue too.

Two years later, after more feelings of betrayal from my life outside ballroom, my trust demons still affected my dancing with my teacher. I remember getting frustrated with myself in Foxtrot because I couldn’t stay connected with my teacher as we went into pivots. The force of the rotation pulled me away from him and I couldn’t figure out how to counter it. My teacher reviewed (again) the importance of keeping my left side, specifically my chest, toward him. I kept trying and kept feeling like a failure, and then my teacher observed that I would still sometimes “shy away” from him when we were in closed hold. Which meant I would let my chest fall so my boobs weren’t pushed up against him like what naturally would happen. Even when I thought I was being very conscious about maintaining that connection, subconsciously I was still guarded. It had been two years! And my teacher had never given me a reason to mistrust him.

I’ve been dancing with my current teacher for over three years now and have made a lot of progress in my dancing and my trust issues. But my teacher still tells me that I’m too “polite” in getting into frame at times.

It’s no joke that ballroom will bring out all of your fears and insecurities. Even though I’m aware of my trust issues, I work on them, and I write about them, I’m still surprised to find out how much they continue to affect me. Sometimes I feel bad that I can’t make myself feel comfortable enough to do everything my teacher asks me to do. I feel almost guilty that he has to deal with the fallout from damage caused by others. It doesn’t seem fair.

But there has been noticeable progress. My teacher is patient and doesn’t seem to mind dealing with my demons. As I rebuild my house of cards, I realize that the cards didn’t just fall, they were ripped into smaller pieces when the house collapsed. So it’s taking a lot longer to build them back up than it did the first time.

When I watch more advanced dancers, all I want is to move like them. But I know I won’t be able to until I stop holding myself back. Hopefully, with my teacher’s help, I can rebuild my house stronger than before and someday feel comfortable enough to let my guard down and just dance.