Action thrillers “True Lies” (Arnold Schwarzenegger & Jamie Lee Curtis) and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (Brad Pitt & Angela Joie) had major plot points based on the tango. Fun movies too.

True love wins out after much mayhem. The tango is an aggressive dance.

The Follow, the more difficult position to be in (remember the Ginger Rogers idea), has to understand body and dance movement, but should not try to think about dancing. When things fall apart on the dance floor I tell my partner to sing so that she does not try to figure what I’m doing. That thinking slows her reaction time down and sets her back even more.

I’ve been taking lessons for 5 1/2 years (today is my 57th birthday), so I know that the more senior generation can learn this and excel. She and I have danced for the last 2 1/2 years and we regularly get comments on our dancing. One issue I have found is that Good Dancers Dance Large — big frames and confident steps driving you down the dance floor. The motion allows you to get “into” the dance and helps you cover errors more easily.

Enjoy the dancing … find a partner with whom you can find pleasurable dancing.

That was so much fun, I would love to try again. My husband has tried ballroom dancing before though and said it was a disaster. In a sad twist on the ballet setback of yours, he has a strong martial arts background. Here he is already rather nervous and many moves in dancing are a lot like throws… well when you are nervous your best known reflexes take over. He stopped at that point.

Done true to its roots, swing dancing is also all about lead and follow, every bit as much as tango.

(But many places do “ballroomized” swing dancing, which is different.)

I think this post might relate to your slightly later post about critical thinking. There is no logical deduction in the lead-and-follow communication, but there is a great deal of learning not to second guess what someone else is about to do. That’s a valuable thing to practice, and a great aid to clear discussion of ideas!

We and our swing dancing friends would much rather spend a song doing fewer fancy moves with a more solid sense of “connection”. What makes swing dancing fun for us is the communication, not the dance steps. Besides talking to your partner (it is a social dance, after all) you are in communication with your partner’s movement, with the musicality of the song, and with the floor. That’s four things to concentrate on! No wonder it is difficult to do well.

The big think about ballrom dancing is to have a good “connection” to your partner, whoever they are. Not a romantic connection. In fact, you can have a good connection with a complete stranger, as it’s a learned thing (it has a lot to do with the proper level of tension in the arms, placement of hands, and posture). It’s the connection that allows the leader to lead, and the follower to follow, all the while apearing to everyone else to be anticipating the leader’s every next move.

Good fun!

If your average man knew how impressed women are by a physically confident man who can lead (as expressed in dancing) well they would all be at dance class.

Your comments (and others’ comments) about “leader” and “follower” remind me of something Gov. Ann Richards in Texas once said. “Women can do anything a man can do…in high heels and moving backwards.” (BTW, I’m a Republican).

Neo…come on down to Texas. We’ll teach you how to do the C&W Texas Two Step. After a couple of Shiner Dark Beers, if you aren’t doing it right, at least you’ll THINK you are doing it right!