The scene is a late summer afternoon in 1991. I am seven years old, standing in my grandparents’ living room and feeling rather pleased with myself, even though I am in trouble. On my feet are my brand-new school shoes, shoes that we had to visit a half a dozen stores to find because I was insistent that I would not wear anything else. This was exasperating for my grandmother – my siblings’ requests for sneakers featuring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Little Mermaid were fairly easy to accommodate, my demands for pink-and-white leather saddle shoes were not. They were also willing to compromise; Barbie and Batman gear were acceptable alternatives in their school wish-list, but I remained steadfast in what I wanted. Now I stood in the middle of the room in a little sliver of mid-afternoon sunshine coming through the window, admiring the pretty grey shadow pattern Gram’s lace window sheers cast on the pink leather uppers.
The reason I am inside is because now that I’ve gotten the shoes, I’m absolutely refusing to take them off. They were a prize hard won, and I want to savor the victory. This has led to a silent standoff between my grandmother and me, which is in turn interrupting the tranquility of my grandfather’s Sunday afternoon. His favorite radio program is being disrupted jointly by Gram smacking pans around in the kitchen as she makes Sunday dinner, and me in the adjoining living room smacking into furniture as I perform a clumsy twirl around the coffee table (I’m not supposed to be doing that, either, because of problems in my inner ear throwing my equilibrium off, but I like watching my skirts swirl and quite frankly, it’s fun). Papa is positioned in the doorway separating us, a neutral party trying to keep peace between two headstrong personalities, when a Glenn Miller number comes over the radio. As I accidentally backhand a plant (catching it, thankfully, without Gram seeing), inspiration strikes.
“Gert!” he calls to Gram. “Turn it up a little. Sis, come here. If you’re going to dance, you should at least know a few steps.”
I right the plant and skip over to where Papa stands, his feet a little less than shoulder width apart to accommodate my size. He takes my right hand in his, the other is under his arm since he is very tall and I’m not quite big enough to reach his shoulder comfortably. He explains the basics: one step left (my right), one step forward (backward for me), one step right (left for the mirrored person), then back to the start. We begin slowly, but I am unsure of my steps and keep tripping as I try to move faster. He doesn’t let me topple, but laughs as he tells me to stop trying to lead: big ship has to guide little ship, always.
“But why?” I ask.
“Because they’re taller.”
We try again, getting the pace down, but I still keep tripping as I try to watch and make sure I’m moving my feet at the right moment. Papa shakes his head. I am told to line my feet up with his, toes touching for a reference point as we move; after that, I’m not to look down again.
“But how will I make sure my feet are going in the right direction?” I protest.
“You’ll know,” he smiles. “A big part of dancing is getting to know your partner’s movements, so you don’t have to continually be looking at your own feet. You communicate through your movement.”
I nod, not fully grasping what he’s trying to say, and we plod on. The steps aren’t quite so hard now, but my neck aches a bit from having to look up so much. At one point my foot accidentally comes down hard on his unprotected toes. Papa winces; I am immediately horrified. Should we stop? “No,” he says. “You don’t throw in the towel just because you miss a step. You keep going to the end of the song, and afterwards you just keep practicing until you get it right. But learn from your mistakes. Do you see?”
I think so. Before we start again, I very quietly slip my new shoes off without being asked (I don’t let Gram see, though).
By now I’m very self conscious. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m very concerned about stepping on Papa’s toes again. As I resume my position, I’m not sure of myself at all. The song changes again, this time to something with a faster tempo.
“Ah, good!” Papa says as he starts stepping more quickly than I’d have liked. “Now we get to really dance!”
*****
As we’ve moved slowly ahead with making new friends and contacts for RivalCast, I can’t help sometimes but correlate the anxiety I feel there with how I felt learning those first few dance steps. The similarities are strong. There are some basic networking moves to get you started – associate with groups, go out to events, actually talk to someone – but we most often start just the way my seven-year-old self did: spinning around like crazy, knocking into things, and hoping to God Gram didn’t make good on her promise to rap you with a spoon.
Even when somebody shows you the basic steps, whether it be from a book, a class, or a mentor, it still takes time and practice and experience before you get it right. Sometimes the timing will be off – you’ll have to figure out how to match your steps. Some partners will be too tall to comfortably dance with at first try, which isn’t necessarily a reflection on either of you; you might just have to grow a bit first. There will be times, especially early on, where you step on toes – it is only the end of the world if you make it the end of the world. Likewise, there will be other times where you’re so busy looking at your own feet to avoid stepping on toes that you totally miss seeing an obstacle right in front of you, and you’ll trip. Don’t beat yourself up over it, but don’t give yourself in to excuses, either. Own up to your part in the mistake, and learn from it.
And sometimes, as nice as they are, you need to take the pretty shoes off for a bit until you get a feel for what you’re doing.
*****
We didn’t learn to twirl that August afternoon. Dancing, like most skilled endeavors, requires a simpler starting point that needs to be mastered before one can move on to more complicated steps. It took a while, but over time we did move on to spins and dips and all sorts of other moves that made the dance more interesting to watch. None of them were easy at first, and some of them require a lot of grace and trust in your partner to pull off properly. And even though I’m much more experienced now that I was, there are still days when I botch a step for one reason or another. It’s frustrating, but that’s life, and the important thing is to just shake it off and keep going. Not every move will be right for every song, so make it a point to continually learn new steps, and practice, practice, practice.
Because you never know what the radio will queue up next.
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