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Shortcut to self discovery.

I have just met a woman and I take her into my arms. Immediately she can see all of my sins. She possesses the power, as all women do, of perfect omniscient hindsight. She knows my failures as a man, my rudderless life, my awkward, crass, judgmental, insecure fumblings in every conversation that I’ve ever had. She also - simultaneously - looks forward with the clairvoyance of a Cassandra. More failures. More detritus. More clueless blundering and untempered emotional immaturity. She sees all of this in an instant. My smokescreen of confidence, affability, and a clean pair of trousers is thwarted before I utter a word.

The instructor introduces himself and his assistant. Leaders to this side of the floor, followers to the opposite. Two lines form with a four yard gap in between. If you didn’t come with someone, now is the chance to introduce yourself to a partner. I stare across the ravine at the thin, pretty, well made up woman I met five minutes prior. I arrived alone. She was standing alone. After computing some quick arithmetic I concluded that one and one still make two and so I jumped from the door of a plane and asked if she was here for the lesson. We are now squared off, along with thirty other couples, learning the foundation of a closed Honky Tonk Two Step position.

This is my second introductory class in two weeks. The first was a remedially simple lesson in a cramped saloon. The instructor was adequate but I gained no insight beyond the rhythm of the holy meter slow slow quick-quick slow. Useful but not translatable to anything outside of that space. Here, at the Sagebrush, the floor is broad and the instructor is erudite. I proceed to have my mind blown open by a new lexicon of terms, techniques and definitions.

The leader of the dance is, essentially, I come to learn, the choreographer. This is news to me. I am staggered by this discovery so late into my adulthood and also crushed under the pressure of having to plan and execute a string of moves with each new partner. I table my anxieties about having to invent a new routine with every song and focus on learning the footwork provided by the instructor over the course of the hour. This I can do well. I am nothing if not meticulous when it comes to learning a set pattern.

The next depth charge of wisdom comes in the method of communication between two dancers. In previous explorations of partner dance I had surmised that the leader would perform a move and the follower would intuit it based on…I don’t know. His shoulders, I suppose. By watching his eyes. By feeling the pressure of his masculine aura. By reading his mind. I am, of course, an idiot. Tone is the term used for the pressure applied by the palm of either dancer’s hand. Tone, the instructor would reiterate every two or three minutes, should be firmer than you think. This simple articulation of tone serves as the antenna by which I will communicate with my partner. During the lesson we were guided through a set series of four simple moves so it was easy to rely on rote memorization in order to execute the dance without stumbling. Out in the wilds of the open dance floor, however, a leader’s tone is their primary means of guidance with a new, untested partner. Once again, I am staggered.

The hour concludes and I brazenly opt in for the following intermediate lesson. After a moment’s embarrassment toward the start of the hour (open position to hammer lock to a hyperexpression of the cuddle move called shadow (my god) took some guidance from the assistant) I am able to bluff my way through a more complicated move set. This class also has the added bonus of rotating partners and I am able to dance with a dozen different women over the course of the lesson. Most of them are more experienced that I and a few offer advice and criticism of my technique. One or two of them are just this side of harsh with their words of wisdom but that’s alright, I’m willing to admit I may be in over my head. Again, however, I am able to pull of the final string of moves without breaking anyone’s toes and I feel good about my progress.

After the second hour of lessons the teacher packed up his kit and the band took the stage. Open dance began. I tried my hand out in the wilderness but after exhausting the rote routine handed to me by the instructor I could not escape the pattern. Desperately trying to return to the fundamentals I’d learned over an hour ago I got stuck in an eddy until, finally, the woman I was with smiled politely and asked me, what are we doing? Inadequacy flooded over me. I froze. She took over and told me not to be embarrassed when the twirling was done. She’s right. Two and a half hours of dancing is a lot when my lifetime daily average is roughly zero. Socrates said a day without dance is a day wasted. I count today as a win.

Every person I meet is, in some way, a reflection of myself. If I make a new friend it is easy to indulge in the qualities I like about them. Sarcasm, judgement, silliness, self-indulgent introspection, self-pity, anxiety, sentiment, nostalgia, irony. It’s fun to share a similar story and mock the world with someone. As for the people I do not immediately click with it is just as easy for me to remain aloof and foster notions of resentment, impatience, haughtiness and schadenfreude. Within those people, unfortunately, I am troubled to discover, is the path to growth. The reflection that I find ugliest must be faced.

This evening of partner dance was the quickest route I have ever found to that mirror of self evaluation. The way you dance, they say, is the way you make love. I would extend that analogy to the way I cook, the way I act, the way I lead my life. I can perform the mechanics well enough but I cannot let go of the planned routine and float gracefully without tangling my mind in a knot of movements and footwork. Practice will surely lead to improvement but there’s something else. I spoke to no other men this evening and yet I detected no animosity. Everyone was here for the same reason. Whatever this is, this modern mating call, well planned so that intimacy can be achieved without social transgression, it is not easy to do with a smirk. One cannot dance wryly with a stranger.

As I continue to explore partner dance I will not just be learning steps so well that they become second nature but also setting down my preconceived notions about what my partner thinks of me. At the start of every sequence I noticed a pattern in my followers’ eyes. The dance would begin and the woman I was with would drop into place, fully giving herself over to whatever I was about to do. There were moments, fleeting but genuine, when I would spin a woman, watch her light up, and I could see that, oh, that is all that is required here. I am not trying to achieve some unfindable grail of spiritual enlightenment. I’m just supposed to do one move, then another, and another, until the song is over. That, of course, is it’s own kind of grail. But it cannot be gotten if I am prophesying failure for myself or doubting my partner’s trust in me. We are both here. We have both come on a dare and with that courage we will not judge each other. I’m sorry to say it has taken me this long to discover such a beautiful expression of human trust but I’m glad I got here when I did. I hope I get to dance again tomorrow.