May I have this misstep?

The Hero and I have finally decided to take the plunge and sign up to take ballroom dance lessons. We figured this would help us expand our horizons, gain some new skills, and do something fun. Mostly we signed up because we are cheap and got a really good Groupon deal for the lessons.


Let me just say that if you, too, have been desiring to learn to dance but held back because maybe you assumed everyone doing ballroom dancing was upwards of 85 years old, let me assure you, based on our experience, this is not the case. There are plenty of younger dancers. In fact, the first time we walked into the studio and saw the instructors, I felt a strong urge to ask if I could see their driver's licenses, just to make sure they actually were of driving age. 


Our fears that we would be the youngest people there by several decades was therefore replaced by a new concern: that we would be considered old enough to be placed in a geriatric dance group ("Forget your walkers today, did we, Mr. and Mrs. B? No worries -- we'll just have you do some sit-dancing"). 


When the Hero signed us up, he was told that our instructor would be "Brandi," whom I assumed would be a very young female or possibly a slightly older ex-cheerleader. We were about right on the young part, but Brandi turned out to be Brandon, a young man with bleach blond, slicked-back hair and an energetic smile that, as far as we could tell, nothing could disturb, even the news that we had never, ever danced before. (We left out the part about the few DVD dance lessons we've had, lest they raise his expectations for our skills.)


Brandon gave us some preliminary instructions -- walking forward, walking backward, moving to each side, avoiding other nearby couples, not stepping on the studio's Pomeranian, etc. Once these were accomplished to his satisfaction, he launched into teaching us the foxtrot step. This consists entirely of -- for the lady -- stepping back, stepping forward, and stepping sideways once. For the man, it consists of endeavoring not to step on the lady's feet. No, no! Of course for the man the steps are reversed. 


The foxtrot involves, according to one source, "subtle rise and fall action." The subtlety rather escaped us, particularly on the "fall" part. But we practiced this sequence several times, and then Brandon told us to keep doing the steps as he attempted to distract us, which he did by, for instance, turning on some music.


Instantly we forgot everything we had just learned. Where was the beat? Were we supposed to be going backward? forward? sideways? 


Brandon smoothly got us back on track, and soon we were ready to learn the waltz box step. The waltz, of course, is in 3/4 time, requiring us to forget everything we had learned about the two-count foxtrot step. Fortunately we did not find this difficult. Nor did we find the box step particularly difficult, having practiced it several times with our DVD instructors in the comfort of our own family room. 


We learned that to stay on beat, it is sometimes helpful to keep track audibly of the beats in some way, such as by counting "ONE, two, three; ONE, two, three" or using some terminology borrowed from the field of explosives: "BOOM, tick, tick; BOOM, tick, tick."


Our half-hour passed very quickly, and by the end we actually felt we had done something resembling dancing, even if we were still not very subtle about it. If Brandon thought otherwise, he did not say so. He actually announced that we had "potential," which made us giddy with excitement. Imagine how far we might be able to go with dancing! 


This euphoria lasted until Brandon announced that we should sign up for not one but two group lessons next before he saw us privately again. This way, he said, we could practice our steps and be able to pick right up with him next time.


We should be fine at the group lesson. So long as they don't turn on any music.