STUPID things overheard at social dances.

[Ginger]

Student: "So, when do you think your students will be good enough to, you know, take out and about, and that sorta thing? Cause, ah, we gotta dance this here Saturday if they're not too..."

Me: "So wait- let me see if I can get this straight- You're asking me when MY students- and might I remind you that YOU fall into that category, too- are "good enough" to come to *your* (snort) dance, and if they don't embarrass *who* too much... wait, is this sounding really TACKY to you yet?"

Student: "Uh, well-ah, well, um... I didn't mean it like... I mean I guess it sounded like... it's just that in the past...some can't... Oh, hey, you find the keys? Okay, well, thanks for the lesson, see you next week!"

Meow. Nobody puts my babies in a corner. Senior citizens vex me so.

[elisedance]

You tell em girl.  There's always CPR...

[cornutt]

Guy complaining about the crowded floor, after having either elbowed or stepped on about six other dancers.   

[elisedance]

Guy complaining about the crowded floor, after having either elbowed or stepped on about six other dancers.   

I think those two go together almost always...

[Some guy]

Me: "May I have this dance?"
Lady: "Sure, let me teach you". 
 

Now I understand why she's never asked to dance. 

[Dora-Satya Veda]

Me: "May I have this dance?"
Lady: "Sure, let me teach you". 
 

Now I understand why she's never asked to dance. 

I had a similar situation happen while teaching.

Me: “What would you like to do?”
Student: “I think I first need to tell you what I know”

Two lessons later

Me: “Thank you for the lessons, times up”
Student: “But you didn’t teach me anything”
Me: “I couldn’t get a word in you were talking all the time”
Student: “Well, I wanted to make sure you understood what I already know so you don’t waste my time and teach me that again”

Interesting

[Ginger]

Guy from another studio: "Oh- I want to dance with you SO bad, I've been watching you two all night... but you see, I'm a Gold dancer, and you're just bronze. Heh, I can't even *do* bronze anymore."

Me: "It's a box. Forward, SIDE, together. You're going Forward, shuffle-shuffle."
Guy: "Yeah, I don't much care for being taught how to dance."
Me: "Then *why* are you here again?"

Looking at a man imitating Quiroga's La Gallena Degollada-
Guy: Yeah, if you keep practicing, someday you'll look like that...

SAME guy later on: "So, you can bring your students, as many of 'em as you want (there are 40), they all get in free to the next dance. YOU two gotta pay. Thirty dollars.

Me: Gag at the gnat and swallow the camel much?

[elisedance]

G:

[Ginger]

"Well, *they* do *your kind* of dancing up *there*- it ain't like around *here*, where *we're* just *social* dancers-"



"Our" kind? What kind is that, exactly? Why do people say that to *just* us? We dance socially- obviously, or we wouldn't *be* there. Does attention to detail REALLY piss people off that much?

[cornutt]

I think I know the type you're talking about.  They took paper-footprints-on-the-floor lessons from one of the chains back in the 1960s, and they haven't had a lesson since.  They know a couple of steps in foxtrot and ECS and they'll do them to any music that is playing.  We don't see these at our studio, but I run into some of them (or, rather, they run into me    ) at city socials.

[Burgess Penguin]

Me: "May I have this dance?"
Lady: "Sure, let me teach you". 
 

Now I understand why she's never asked to dance. 

Had that happen a few times, EXTREMELY not cool! 

[Ginger]

Having a time with a "teacher" lately. Older guy, basically like Cornutt explains, with the exception that HE took LESSONS from PAM RUTHERFORD (Yeah, so did... how many?.. other people?... get in line, pal- they be dancin' circles around your tired old ...)

But anyway- HE is a shining example of Pro Am Poisoner: The people who take lessons and dance almost exclusively with an Infinitely Better Than You Pro.. then when they get to socials, that's all they brag about, and all they want to do is "Well, this is from one of myyyy shoooowcaaaaase routines... funny, you can't follow it... " Uh... because you can't lead it? Because it's choreography and not well-done at that, because it *can't* be led?

That's not enough. I'd beaten him at his own game by poring over hours of OLD Pam Rutherford in-competition videos so I learned some of her favorites and studied them to modest mimicry, so I best him at that... then he takes up half the class trying to teach them while WE are teaching, THEN bitches because he missed something. THEN, at socials, he pulls our students out on the floor and tries to overwhelm the crap out of them with "Okay, swing and sway comes from imagining you're ducking under a clothesline- you start by moving your head, and then your body follows! So now, our babies look like Jay and Silent Bob to Morris Day. What. The. Eff.

He started off tonight with some line of crap "Well, Pam was a big gal, you know she wasn't skinny, kinda a thick gal, like yourself..."

... Oh. That's it.

"Yeah, I knew a guy one time, got his ass kicked up between his shoulder blades, tall, balding, glasses, moustache, wouldn't shut up, kinda like... hey, where'd ya go?"

I'm on a new bitchflakes diet. It really seems to be working. Nobody's DARED Comment on my extra twelve pounds.

[elisedance]

well if I was needed to put someone down you would definitely be last in line

[Ginger]

Here's my thing- the senior citizens with whom we work in this area are *so* blunt that it doesn't seem like their "innocent remarks" can be taken as anything *but* intentional.

They *always* comment on my weight. "Hey, lookin' a little chubbier than last time." "Oh, heheh, Ginger's here, hide the brownies!" (I don't eat at dance socials specifically for this reason.)... "Oh, my wife's a lot smaller than you are- Not that that's a bad thing, she'd just be a lot easier to pick up and swing around"

I understand "They're old people. Many of them aren't operating under the same social protocols we are", and there are any number of factors that make them tactless. But I wouldn't dare insult their age, dancing, or *anything* during normal conversation the way "Hey, she's fat" just flutters down out of the blue at least once every other social.

Another thing- realistically, I'm bigger. I'm 5/7, and weigh between 175 and 190. I say that because four months ago, I was at 175. Some stress happened, and it started to creep up, and when that stress left, I crashed and ballooned. I can still wear all of the clothes I did, so it isn't showing, so much as maybe it's just in different places, or something- I don't know. But I *get* it. I'm not 5'4 and 112. I'm not in a size six anything except shoes on occasion.

The other thing is that the one Heckler *always* interrupts class to quiz the partner on the hair-splitting over-explanation of something massively technical and so not even relevant to the class material. If we're doing bronze foxtrot, he's asking about how to "swoop" the lady into a throwaway oversway, and THEN goes on to try to explain to everyone "You just pull her across with your left arm, and set her down."

Anyone who's ever *tried* a TO knows that it isn't that way.

They don't mean any harm. It's just how they are. I have to remember that... but when The Heckler interrupted class to launch into a temper tantrum about "That's NOT what you said" (he was outvoted and shut up)... the gloves are off. You don't do that. Go ahead and try that in one of Dave Hamilton's classes. Hell, go try it at some little chain studio with a terrified six-week-wonder trying to show the 'maaagic steeep'. It doesn't fly. Not with them, not with real people, and not with inbetweeners like us.

And Pam Rutherford in her awesomeness would mop the floor with this fella. If I could just pay her gas and lodging down here... hmm...

[cdnsalsanut]

Here's a couple:

I burned a waltz instructional dvd (bronze) for a friend the other day.  He calls me the next day: Do you have silver?  I've been through the bronze and I get that, I know those steps now.  What more can you give me?

Wow.  The entire bronze syllabus in a day - and I thought I was learning quickly!