Watching the ball room dancing show on ABC now. The Kelly girl is steamy. But she gets a lot of flack for her lack of dancing ability from a judge who is just a hater. Maybe she’s got a point about her ballroom dancing ability I suppose.
Watching the behind the scenes bits? remind me of the rehersals that Catherine and I went through for our wedding dance. We chose a country song – Clint Black and his wife singing -?When I Said I Do. The lyrics meant a lot plus it was a waltz. We ran into a great dance teacher down in Cupertino and she took our song and choreographed a fun, yet simple (so I had a chance) routine to it.
A real good job even – real thoughtfully done – a nice little entrance during the intro and a little tie in with the lyrics – there’s a line in the song – “…and here by your side, or a million miles away…” – where Catherine gets spun away from me. Classy. And the routine ended the first chorus with a dip of course.
We had a band at the wedding too – and they were willing to learn the song if we sent it to them. Boy, we bought that album several times! (end of legal disclaimer…) And we practiced the dance all over. Parking lots after dinner. Around the couch. Waiting in line at movie theaters. We were pretty comfortable with it.
But that day – well, it was pretty busy and overwhelming. Yet, in a way, as we got up for the first dance, there were no nerves, we were just celebrating. Then the nerves kicked in. The band was playing the song a bit differently than we were used to it. We missed the intro. We had to catchup – figure out where we were. Or where we were supposed to be.
But we didn’t. We tried. But the moment had come and gone. It wasn’t going to be the perfect dance as drawn out by our instructor. And in that moment, as Catherine and I glanced at each other, we knew, we were the only ones that knew how it was supposed to go. We were the only ones that knew we didn’t recognize the song.
So we danced. We giggled. We whispered the next move in advance since we were kind of freewheeling it and not used to freewheeling it. People were just surprised we were out there with any moves at all…it was fun. The “million miles away” lyrics passed us by. Or actually reminded us of the spin away move. Oh yeah – let’s do that next! No one would have made the connection anyway. I dipped her a bit early too. But we were all smiles.
So though Evander was kicked off, I think he really did have a good time messing around with a few steps.? And as for our first dance, I think everyone was glad I didn’t wear any ruffles or sequins or spandex. On the outside at least.
You know, I just watched it once, but Evander’s hurt expression when he was kicked off just slayed me. Kinda jealous that he could get so worked up about it.