What I Learned From My First Dance Class
7/19/20265 min read
So, I started learning bachata. There are a few reasons why.
I’ve always been interested in dance. I loved dancing as a kid, I loved music. As a teenager I did hip-hop, but as an adult, even though I missed dancing, that direction didn’t really attract me anymore. It was hard to picture myself jumping around with a bunch of teenagers. Still, almost every year I would come back to the idea, look around, search for classes… and then never actually go.
Later, completely separately from this, I started taking part in different self-development groups, including family constellations, which I still do today. And to my surprise, dance came up several times, in relation to completely different topics, almost as a kind of “solution.”
Not as the holy grail that fixes everything, obviously. But as a tool that could actually be very useful for me.
As a single woman, I’ve often struggled with letting go of control, relaxing, being playful. That’s what happens when you’ve had to hold things together since childhood. There’s no time for things like that. I’ll go even further: it feels dangerous. Because what happens if I let go? If I let go of the system, everything falls apart. Game over.
Quietly adding here that this can be true even when, from the outside, there clearly isn’t much of a system at all. But seriously. Familiarity is often what we’re actually afraid to let go of, even for a moment. Paradoxically, if what I’m used to is a lack of structure, then structure itself can start to feel threatening.
But back to dancing.
There were things missing from my life, and I knew I wanted to dance, but I didn’t really connect the two in my head. Of course, whenever I told myself I wanted to loosen up a little, dance would often pop into my mind, but I never really went further than that.
In family constellations, as I said, I’ve explored all kinds of topics. Setting and keeping boundaries, experiencing my femininity, allowing someone else to hold me, freedom, control, and in relationships, that question of where I end and where the other person begins.
Depth alert: the independent woman who is always “handling life" - there can be a deep desire for connection in her.
Yes, I know. I could call it the inner child, the little girl, and so on, but I don’t really want to label or over-psychologize it. These can simply be human experiences, and I’m happy to leave it at that for now.
That desire for connection can come bursting to the surface in a way that takes over everything. Because the strong, independent woman doesn’t exactly live life on low heat. She has learned that her strength is needed. Always and everywhere. And this may sound a bit harsh, but quite often she does everything through force.
The point is: intensely.
And yes, this kind of strong woman can connect intensely too. Deeply. Because that strength comes from somewhere deep as well. But sometimes this is exactly where things start to go wrong.
When she wants to connect, she gets knocked out of “balance.”
And sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s life, and it can be beautiful. It reminds me of a scene in Eat Pray Love, when Ketut basically says there’s nothing wrong with losing your balance for love sometimes.
And there isn’t. What a beautiful thing.
But sometimes it’s not just the balance that gets disturbed.
The whole scale tips from one side to the other. And that’s where the problems start. And, strangely enough, that’s also where the question of balance really begins.
Because if I tip all the way to one side, what is left on the other?
If all my attention, time and energy are over there with the other person, then who stays here with me? And if I come back to the other side, back to myself, then oh God, now I can’t be there with them.
And this is where a very deep belief comes into the picture: if I choose someone, I won’t be able to stay by my own side too.
As if I have to choose either them or myself.
So quite often I would rather not choose at all. Because someone has to keep running the life I’ve built. I can’t just sit in the other side of the scale, completely ignoring it.
What a dead end.
So instead, I hold on to control and adjust things until they feel familiar again. But then, little by little, I slide back to one side. And somewhere in all of this, I don’t even notice that there is someone else there.
Another human being.
With feelings and their own human experience too.
Well. This is where dance comes in.
Slowly it became obvious to me that some kind of partner dance was probably what I was looking for. And since I’ve always been very drawn to Latin culture and Latin music, that gave me a direction too.
And little by little, I found bachata. However, what I found is probably not only relevant for that.
After my first class, I was talking to an experienced dancer at a get-together about the male and female roles in dance. The follower and the leader, so to say.
Well, hello.
No psychology involved. He was simply talking about his own experience.
He said there comes a point when, as a woman, as the follower, there is really nothing else you can do. You simply have to follow what the man, the lead, is showing you. You have to be able to let go, trust that he knows what he’s doing, trust that he is paying attention to you, while you allow yourself to open up and express yourself.
And yes, knowing that he is paying attention. That he won’t put you into a movement you’re not comfortable with, or something you can’t handle for whatever reason. Knowing that he is there, and that he’ll still be there for the next step, and that he’ll catch you if needed.
And this is the really important part: if needed.
Because in dance, it is not the man’s job to hold the woman up.
The woman holds herself.
And next to him, she opens up. She lets her femininity and her energy come through, but not to the point where the man has to pick up the pieces.
The man holds himself. The woman holds herself.
And together they create something beautiful in the dance. Not by leaning on each other. Next to each other. Together.
They work very closely. From the outside it may even look like they are holding each other up as they move, but that’s not really what is happening. And out of that dance, a beautiful balance appears.
Yes, sometimes it tips one way, sometimes the other, but it can always come back to the center. The dance can. The couple can. The woman can. The man can.
And the whole system doesn’t fall apart because of it.
Well, that’s what I learned in my first dance class.
Maybe slowly, week by week, I can bring some of that into my own life too. When I’m no longer staring at the floor because I’m trying to do everything perfectly, but I can look into my dance partner’s eyes easily and notice that he is there too.
And somehow, I’m still just as much there too.