I started ballroom to meet new people. I had just transferred to a large public university and wanted to make new fiends. I started taking non-credit ballroom classes there and from then on, became completely hooked on ballroom. I had done ballet before in my childhood but had never experienced the social interaction that ballroom provided.

tango

My brother made me do it. One day he said, "You're going dancing with me tonight." Having nothing better to do that night, I did...and now I'm better than he is!

why did I start? Well, I had just gotten back to washington from Indiana (long story there) and when I got back, I had no job... no money.... no nothing and I was in a morass on what I wanted to do. My entire life was pretty much in upheaval. Anywayz, a few days after I got back I was looking in the paper for jobs and I saw a listing for a studio that was hiring instructors no exp. nessacary which I thought sounded a bit fishy but I figured that since I had nothing else going on, I might as well try it. I showed up and went through the interview and then after that, I was asked to go through the audition process. I aced the audition and graduated top of my class. My original reason for starting to dance was because I needed the money, my reason for continuing to dance is because I'm a performer and I would die without it.

The question everyone should ask themselves before starting each day: Quo Vatamus

To meet women, of course. No, just kidding, though admittedly that is a nice benefit of taking up ballroom. I actually started because in my mind, ballroom, standard in particular, is what I've always thought of as real dancing -- a couple floating around the floor together dancing all sorts of neat figures and combinations. I know there are plenty of real, legitimate styles, but to me they're just not the same thing as ballroom. And I never did like the freestyle stuff at school dances as a kid (well, slow dances were OK, but I hated the fast stuff). I always used to watch Championship Ballroom Dancing on TV and enjoyed it. So when there were some mini-classes in ballroom dancing given at my undergrad school, I took them. I didn't really start until I went to grad school though and joined the ballroom club here. That's when I really started taking classes and going social dancing all the time. I've been doing it for years now and always enjoy it. I started in ballroom because it was the only kind of dancing I really wanted to learn.

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James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall