So after some *serious* persuasion from Jen & my MIL (because they thought I would enjoy watching it), I sat down to watch the US release of Shall We Dance? last weekend. Even though I did hear that the Japanese version was infinitely & superiorly better in nearly every regard. Even though Richard Gere, who I have dubbed, "wuss man" plays the leading male role. Even though my ballroom dancing days have gone way of the dodo.
I'm somewhat embarassed to say that that movie moved me emotionally more than I would have thought. "No, honey, those weren't tears you saw me wipe from my eyes. My contacts were bothering me." "But you don't wear contacts, honey." Oops. Busted.
In my defense, I don't think it was the ballroom dancing that moved me the most, although it did elicit some *very* fond memories of my ballroom dancing days while I was at UT. I was emotionally stricken with the relationship of John Clark and his wife, played by Susan Sarandon. Don't ask me to explain it - I just thought their relationship at the end of the movie was very sweet.
While watching the competiton portion of the movie, I thought back on my first and only ballroom dance competition. I had only been dancing for about four months, I believe, although I was dancing on the order of 4-5x a week between the PE classes offered at UT, taking lessons with the UT Ballroom Dance Club, and going out to ballroom dance studios over the weekend. Someone mentioned that UT was hosting a ballroom dance competition near the end of the semester and asked if I was interested. I said that I was, and they paired me up with another novice woman named Heather(?). I found out that she had been taking some private lessons as well, so my work was definitely cut out for me! We ended up practicing together on weekends in addition to dancing with each other as much as we could during the club. Ah Heather, you're the one who gave me my first ride EVER in a convertible.
Come the day of the dance, I was pretty nervous but excited. We had entered in all the dances I knew (waltz, foxtrot, east coast swing, rumba, and tango.) To make a long story short, not only did we qualify for the finals in the novice division for ALL of those dances, we placed anywhere from 4th through 6th place out of over a dozen couples in each event! Considering that we had only been dancing together barely a month, and that both of us had less than half a year of experience, going up against people who had been dancing a year or more, we did awesome! At some point, there was a team competition, and I remember dancing in that event with a way more experienced woman from our club, and we ended up taking first place in that event! So for all of my efforts, I did come away with a 1st place ribbon.
At one point during the competition, I remember seeing my PE teacher there with some of my classmates. They were PRETTY surprised to see me competing! I guess they didn't realize I had been doing some dancing "on the side." Heh. I remember hearing them say, "isn't that Cliff from our class? Wow! Look at him go! Go number 34!!!" You know all the goofy shouting out of numbers during competitions to cheer on your favorite couples? A la Strictly Ballroom? That is not some goofy made-up thing. It really happens.
So while I have since hung up my dance shoes, after seeing Shall We Dance?, Jen & I are committed to finding a ballroom dance studio sometime after the baby is born. I'm fortunate that she took some ballroom dance at BYU, also known as the "granddaddy of ballroom" (well, that's my moniker anyway).
*****
My other recent obsession has been trying to acquire fencing equipment off Ebay. Jen mentioned a while back that she wished there was something for some of the older boys to learn while attending the Homeschool Zone, a group of homeschoolers that meet twice a week for various activities. That got me thinking about my fencing days while at UT, and the fact that I was a teaching assistant for almost two years. Could I actually teach fencing to kids? I still had my teaching manual & notes. I still have my own equipment. The more I thought about it, the more confident I thought I could pull it off. The only limiting factor was obtaining enough equipment for the kids to use. So I hit Ebay and started monitoring auctions for fencing equipment.
So far, I've managed to procure two masks, and trying to stay patient for fencing foils. The problem with the foils is that people keep bidding more than I want to pay, and more than the initial "buy it now" price! Go figure. But it looks like I may be able to start a 6-week class with around 4 kids and charge enough to offset my equipment costs. If this turns out to be a success, I may consider teaching fencing here at our local community center as well. We'll see.
*****
And since I'm such a good guy, I'll leave y'all with this funny video:
Geeky white boy lip-syncing to Dragostea din Tei
And after you see it, you KNOW you want more, so here's the original:
or Original linked to RealPlayer
Just so you're warned, I am not responsible for any ill-effects resulting from having that song stuck in your head all day. ;)
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