Silver

Last night Zirpu and I "checked out" of Bronze 4 in the six majors - that is, in waltz, tango, foxtrot, cha cha, rumba, and swing. We checked out of B4 bolero weeks ago. A check-out is a test; you have to demonstrate that you can dance the required steps both with your partner and by yourself. Dancing alone makes it very clear that ballroom dancing is partner dancing!

What this means is that we are now officially Silver students. In the dance universe, the syllabus is broken into sections: Bronze one through four, Silver one through four, and then into Gold levels. Bronze one and two gives you enough to make your way around a dance floor, and three and four gives your technique and steps with more complexity. Silver is very fancy dancing, and Gold is competition-level training. With some differences in the steps at each level in the syllabi, this is true for Arthur Murray and USA Dance.

Many people assume that we started taking lessons at Arthur Murray because I wanted to, and/or because we were a wedding couple who came back. We started dancing on a whim - while driving up Foothill one day Zirpu said, "Look, there's an Arthur Murray studio, let's take lessons." It just happened to be a few months before we got married. Our first dance teacher, Sean Tamashiro, was really enthusiastic and choreographed the recessional as well as our first dance, but we weren't there because of the wedding.

By completing our Full Bronze, Zirpu and I are recognized as very accomplished dancers - it has been unusual for students to finish the Bronze program in our studio (though I think there are going to be a lot more Silver students soon). We have accomplished what we originbally set out to do, and now we have other goals, as well as other dances we have started to learn - salsa, Viennese waltz, West Coast swing, country two-step, and samba.

Among other things, dance:
1) Is the hobby that Zirpu and I share - our lessons are the times in the week when we know we will be together, dancing and learning together.
2) Has changed my perception of my body.
3) Has made Zirpu more comfortable interacting with people, whether he's met them or not.
4) Has busted my stereotypes of dancers and ballroom dancing (I mean, really, have you seen how sexy a rumba can be?).
5) Has led to friends that we would not have met otherwise.
6) Has given us a community and involved us in activities in the town in which we live.