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A Love Letter to Awkward First Steps
There's a particular kind of chaos that happens when twenty strangers show up to their first ballroom class. Someone's wearing running shoes. Someone else is already stretching in the corner like they've been doing this for years. And then there's you, standing near the mirror, wondering if you picked the right studio, if you're too old, if your knees will hold up, if everyone can see how lost you feel.
That was me, seven years ago, at a community center in Portland. The instructor was a retired competitive dancer named Gloria who moved like warm honey and had zero patience for excuses. Her first words to us: "Nobody here cares if you've never danced. By next month, you'll hate me. By next year, you'll thank me. Let's go."
I've been thinking about Gloria a lot lately — about the version of myself that walked into that room versus who I've become. The journey wasn't what I expected.
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The Shoe Problem Nobody Warns You About
Here's what I didn't know my first week: regular shoes will betray you.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Your sneakers, your flats, your comfortable walking shoes — they don't pivot right. When you try to turn in sneakers, your foot sticks to the floor like Velcro. When you attempt a rise (that's ballroom-speak for going up on your toes), you might as well be wearing cement blocks.
A proper pair of ballroom shoes — even the $60 beginner pairs — changes everything. The suede sole lets you glide. The heel placement teaches your body where to balance. And the strap across your arch reminds you, every single second, that you're not just walking anymore. You're dancing.
Gloria used to say: "You wouldn't play basketball in flip-flops. Why would you waltz in sneakers?"
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The Community Nobody Talks About
What nobody tells beginners is that ballroom dancers are weirdly, almost aggressively friendly.
At my first social dance — a Tuesday night thing at the studio — I was terrified. I'd been taking classes for maybe two months. I knew my basic waltz box and my bronze-level foxtrot, which basically meant I could get through four minutes of music without completely embarrassing myself.
A woman named Ruth, somewhere in her seventies, walked up to me and said, "You look like you're thinking too hard. Want to try a cha-cha? Don't think. Your body already knows what to do."
Ruth was right. Something clicked that night — not a technical improvement, but a shift in how I understood the dance. It stopped being about remembering steps and started being about listening. To the music, to my partner, to the floor beneath me.
That's what social dancing gives you that classes can't: real-world pressure. Different partners, different energies, music that doesn't wait for you to be ready. It's terrifying and addictive in equal measure.
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On Competing (When You're Sure You're Not Ready)
I resisted competition for two years.
My logic: I wasn't good enough. I didn't have the right training. The people who competed had started as children, had bodies built for dance, had something I didn't have.
What changed my mind was watching a competition where a man in his sixties competed in the senior division. He wasn't technically perfect. His frame wobbled during his spin. But there was something in the way he held his partner — the care, the attention, the way he looked at her like she was the only person in the room — that made me cry a little in my folding chair.
I entered my first competition six months later. I came in dead last in my division. I also got a note from a judge that said: "Your connection with your partner is lovely. Keep going."
Connection over perfection. That's the secret nobody puts on the flyer.
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The Advice I Wish Someone Had Given Me
If you're starting out, here's what actually matters:
Find an instructor who corrects you. Not one who lets you float through class feeling good about yourself. Gloria made me redo my first waltz box fourteen times. I hated her. I also learned more in that one hour than in three months of watching YouTube tutorials at home.
Go to social dances before you think you're ready. You're never ready. Go anyway. The worst thing that happens is you stand on the side and watch incredible dancers for an hour. That's not a loss — that's education.
Watch professionals — but not the way you think. Don't just watch competitions. Watch how they breathe. Watch how their shoulders drop when the music starts. Watch the moment their face changes when they truly connect with their partner. The technique will come. The artistry is what transforms a dancer into something more.
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Why I Still Dance
Gloria passed away three years ago. I wasn't at her funeral — I'd moved across the country by then — but I think about her constantly. Especially in those moments when I'm on the floor and the music swells and I remember why this matters.
Ballroom dance gave me something I didn't know I was missing: a way to be fully present in my body, to communicate without words, to fail publicly and beautifully and get back up to try again.
So yeah. Lace up those new shoes. The floor is waiting.
