As I started my dance career in ballet, jazz, and tap for over 15 years, dancing with a partner was something the eluded me. When I practiced, I did, when I performed, it was only about me (and the group if I was performing with others), when I made a mistake, it was my fault.
Then I started ballroom dancing, where you are dancing in a partnership, it was no longer just me. This is one of the main reasons I do ballroom dancing. There is no better feeling than being out on the floor with a person that you trust, respect, and share a passion and love of dance with that no one else can come between while you are on that dance floor. It’s amazing to see some people change partners like they change their clothes. At the end of the day, we must go by history. Look at the most successful and remembered partnerships. They are not the ones that lasted a year or two. They took the time to build an empire and a product. They took the time to create a PARTNERSHIP.
The trouble that most people find is that they think the grass is always greener. But they forget that Dancing is a marathon, not a sprint. And this journey is one unlike any other. It takes time, discipline, and hard work, not only on the dance floor and not only in practice and technique …. But in the actual relationship of the partnership.
Whether you are husband and wife, boyfriend girlfriend, or just a dance partnership and soul mates, all relationships take time to grow, develop and flourish. People underestimate the value of this, people also don’t put the respect which is needed into a partnership to create a great partnership.
I don’t think anyone will lie; dance partnerships are not easy (definitely not hahaha). You are both individual, you both have your ideas and concepts, you both have passion and drive. I think that partnerships, like any relationship, are yin and yang, balance, and individuality. Its not about two twins running around the floor, it’s about a man with his ideas and a woman with her ideas, and then creating from this. That is a skill in itself to keep one’s individuality in a partnership.
The funny thing is I haven’t even talked about an actual connection while dancing (that is a whole other topic). Today I’m just talking about relationships in partnerships. Connections, techniques, timings with each, lead, follow, action, reaction, emotions …. The list goes on and these are all skills being worked on day in and day out in a partnership. The same things are being done every day with the actual relationship of a dance partnership, whether we know it or not. So when you think about it, it is very cool to be able to dance, move and create in one! Something very special and never to be wasted or taken for granted!
As people say, if you want to waltz around and perform alone, go and dance an individual style. If you want to create magic between two people, the art of two bodies moving in unison as one, this is it!
