The instructor is a man, but oddly, sounds like a woman - unless he's clearing his throat, in which case, his voice deepens. He has a dancer's presence, elegant and passionate and a lovely tight dancer's toosh, which I can't help looking at, since I'm following his feet and have to look down that way anyway. Really! His long black hair, tied back into a ponytail, swishes around whenever he pivots. He's good this guy, really good. He can take a dance and turn it into something wonderful and when he does, nothing else exists for him. He will dance til he dies. I love watching him dance. I love his passion for it. Passion is what makes life worth living. I pay him RM50 a month to come and watch him teach us. When he teaches me, he is patient and fun. He can feel my self-consciousness. He notices my awkwardness, yet encourages me to continue. He doesn't care that my hands feel like sandpaper, or that I've stepped on his toes. He laughs at me when I'm concentrating on my feet to get the steps right and my left hand, which I don't know what to do with, forms into a fist, making it look like I want to punch his lights out. He feigns being scared of me and giggles like a girl!
It's not his lights I want to punch out, of that I am sure. Someone else's maybe, but not his. He's too fragile. Too nice. He's tall for an Asian, about my height, maybe a little more. I have to really listen when he talks because his accent is heavier than most and the 'highness' of his voice adds another layer that makes it difficult to understand him. It doesn't really matter if I understand him or not, as long as I can watch his feet and follow him around his worn, chequered dance floor.
I almost have my feet sorted by the way. I can follow his lead and he's a good leader. He makes me look like I know what I'm doing and that's something. Now that I've learned the actual steps, I need to look up and make eye contact. It's more difficult than I expected. It's awkward and way out of my comfort zone. As he tells me to look at him, eyes up, look ahead, I literally break out into a sweat and my breathing shallows out. Gay as he might be, I'm not used to being physically close to a man and I'm finding it a bit of a challenge. It's intimidating, having someone else in my personal space that is not someone I know *in that way*. I don't like it much, it makes me nervous and then I stumble and step on his feet. Maybe I do like it and that's the problem! (LOL) He tells me I need to be elegant and I think to myself, you have no idea what you're up against if you want to make me elegant. I laugh at the thought and then tell him he's got 12 months to work with me. Only 12, and in that time, I expect him to teach me how to be elegant. It's a tough call. I'm the proverbial bull in the china shop. I always feel big and clumsy, except when I'm swimming. Elegant, me? Hah!
Still, I will try. I'll try to iron out the awkwardness, work on the eye contact, relax the fist a bit. I really just need to relax and listen to the music. Not think so much. I'm going to keep going because I always tell the kids "if something is hard for you, or makes you uncomfortable, you probably need to do it". So I will practise what I preach. And I do enjoy it. The company is good, we have fun and we seem to get along.
I feel for this guy, my instructor. Someone with his talent and passion deserves more and I think he's been overlooked because of his orientation. His business has dropped a lot since the economic meltdown, so he's not earning much. But even without the drop in students, I don't think he was doing that well. He actually lives at the studio, in a room behind it, which is on the 3rd floor of a shop house. The actual studio is his lounge room with his television, stereo system and a small bookshelf squashed into a corner. In front of that there's one chair which I'm guessing is what he uses when he watches tv. The walls are covered in dance paraphernalia - pictures of elegant dancers and their partners in stunning sequinned costumes. There's a section that is entirely devoted to certificates. It looks like he's hung every judges certificate that he ever got up there. Posters old and new are crammed around it, covering the bare grey walls behind. Then, if you look closely, you can spot bits and pieces of exotic dance costumes, a silver cane, a scarf with bells hanging off it, gold dance shoes, a feather ruffle thingy. His office is a single desk and next to this is a row of plastic outdoor chairs that his students use. The main wall is mirrored, floor to ceiling and there's a dancers bar along the adjacent wall, under the window. Nothing matches and some of it's been here for years and years, but it's his home and really, I couldn't imagine him anywhere else.
When I come back home, I'm going to miss this quirky little place, with this strange person, of whom I've grown quite fond of.
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