Curve Balls

So, there’s this movie Major League which is a pretty decent baseball movie. I think it actually does a great job of capturing how sports can bring a city together and give people something to root for but that’s not the point here. There’s a character in the movie who crushes fast balls but can’t hit the curve. It feels like that could be a metaphor for life because life loves to throw curve balls. And not the hanging ones that are easy to hit but the sharp breaking ones that you swing and miss by a foot. Learning how to deal with those is the trick.

Not that all curve balls are bad. I mean Rocco was a curve ball in a way. We never expected to have a dog show up on our back porch and work his way into our home and hearts. But he did. Just a matter of adjusting and adapting.

Anyway, I got to my lesson last night and Z and others were being very supportive because I had only told Mini last week about Rocco and with one lesson a week, this was the first time people had seen me since the news broke. Well Z makes some comment about things happening in threes and I’ve got one left (moving Dad into assisted living counts as #2). That type of thing really doesn’t make me feel better and maybe it was a bit of foreshadowing.

Well we went over the last part of the Quickstep and practiced it a few times and then we went back to the Waltz since we hadn’t done that in a bit. Actually got to dance it with Mini a few times and there were parts where you realize that solo dancing isn’t the same. Specifically the spin turn because, without a partner, you can get a heck of a lot of rotation. With a partner, they are in the way. Turns out that you need to sort of split the rotation over the first two steps also allowing your partner to power the second step a little more. Its subtle but its a big difference and one that I couldn’t really feel until dancing it with someone.

Then, we are sitting and going over the lesson and she throws the curve at me. Turns out that last night was her last night at the studio……

She didn’t want to get into details except to say that there was some conflict with studio management and it was making her unhappy. Now, I don’t have all the details but I have managed people before and I didn’t suck at it. Sometimes you get someone who is the wrong fit and you have to make a change. But, for the most part, people have talents and skills to offer and your job as a manager is to find a way to allow them to do the things they are good at. Assuming that the way you do things is the best or only way to do things is arrogance and ego and not a good thing. Without getting too deep into it, let me just say that if the studio couldn’t find a way to make a talented teacher and dancer feel welcome and comfortable, then that’s there problem and not hers. That’s all.

Except that it is also now my problem as I am once again without an instructor. Makes me wonder if the universe isn’t trying to tell me that my dance days are over. Or that it is time to move on to a different place.

As luck would have it, the studio just hired two new instructors. Long story short, they worked at another location which seems to be having a rougher go in the ‘rona world so they were no longer employed there. I guess OwnerGuy sees things looking up and saw an opportunity to bring in a couple of experienced instructors.

And OwnerGuy again offered the same deal he did when I started with JoNY. He’d be the instructor while one of the new/old instructors gets familiar with the Silver stuff. He tossed out Z again but that’s really a non starter.

Funny thing is that I was just getting into the Standard. I mean I’m never going to get excited about the hyper focus on technique but it was improving how I do things. Do I want to go back to the more normal Famous Franchise stuff and try to get Silver III finished? I don’t know. I certainly would love to do another Showcase so should that be my focus. Or is it just time to move on? Decisions, decisions.

Since I’m going to be out next week, I told OwnerGuy to call me in two weeks and we’ll work out a path. It probably makes sense to at least try a lesson or two with this newest instructor just to see if we mesh. But then I really need to figure out where I want this dance journey to go. Right now, I just don’t really know.