I Hear the Train Coming

Before our lesson, OwnerGuy gathered the staff to take a photo. This week was some kind of milestone in terms of lessons for the studio. After last year, I’m sure it is a welcome sight to see business kind of booming. I’ve noticed an increase in wedding couples and I wonder how many people put something off last year and are now bound and determined to have a ceremony this year.

We’re still masked up and they are wiping down every surface and hand washing and sanitizing is happening all over the studio. But it does feel like we are moving into some kind of post Covid world. More like people are waking up after a long dark night. Not totally back to normal but it is a big comeback after having to shut the doors for several months starting just about a year ago.

I know that everyone is going to have their own comfort level about when it is right to start being around large groups of people again. Ballroom is certainly not “essential” (well I could maybe argue that point a bit) so taking a wait and see approach is perfectly reasonable. And some may not even have an option at this point – I don’t know how other places have dealt with reopening of things.

I’m certainly not one to tell anyone what to do. I do hope that those who truly love and miss ballroom and are still sitting on the sidelines won’t wait forever. At the very least, understand your own personal risk and the level of cases in your general area. Make an informed decision based on those. Life carries an assortment of risks and we only get so much time so you have to make the most of it.

But I do have to say that is nice to see the studio so active. It doesn’t feel less safe. It just feels more alive.

Now there is a downside for me to this level of activity. The newer students and the wedding couples take up space on the floor. Especially with an instructor around to watch over them. Plus, because you don’t exactly know what they are supposed to be doing, their moves can be a bit unpredictable at times. And the last thing you want to do is run down a wedding couple. Totally bad form.

But the silver patterns move and are intended to use the entire floor. So it means we have to sometimes weave through people and maybe get a little closer than they would like. As much as possible, you try to avoid that but it is sometimes hard to judge where they are going to be. You try to be alert and watch the floor but that just gives you something else to think about as you try to remember the pattern, follow the music and do the little things OwnerGuy wants.

The one good thing about having OwnerGuy on the lesson is that the other instructors will move when he tells them to. Being the boss is a good thing. I know they tell me this is good practice but I’ve been over this before. In a heat, everyone is doing the same dance. Yes, there are students who don’t move as much but people generally follow line of dance and they do move so it is much easier to find spaces.

We didn’t have any close calls last night which was a good thing because we were doing the Fox Trot and the Viennese Waltz. The Fox Trot is generally under control but we have this section of continuous open naturals in the V Waltz which kind of puts you right on the edge of disaster.

One week until Medal Ball. None of the dances are up to my high standard but they should all do. We’ll do more rounds next week to rehearse the patterns. OwnerGuy will do what he does which is watch and then step in with a few tweaks because there is always something he finds that we could be doing a little better. Still there seems to be incremental improvement and that’s always a good thing.