Nov 16 2008
The Man’s Point of View
OK, to be fair, partner dancing isn’t easy for guys, either. In fact, if a man is dancing properly, he is working much harder than the woman.
If the woman can’t take a step until the man tells her what to do, then it’s obvious that the man can’t just dance his own steps and not worry about her. He has to “drive” the woman as well, so he has to know which direction she needs to move in, and how to get her there.
That’s why the male celebrities on Dancing with the Stars face more of a challenge than the female stars. The judges are very experienced and they can tell when the female professional cheats and “leads” the male star - and he’ll lose points for it. If you’ve ever thought a male celebrity danced well and wondered why the scores were low, that’s probably why.
On top of that, if he’s at a social dance, he also has to make up the dance. Yes, that’s right! At some classes, you’ll learn set routines, but social dancing is all about improvisation – the idea is that you don’t learn set routines, you learn a library of steps then put them together on the dance floor however you like, depending on the music. That’s fine for the girl, because as long as she knows all the individual steps, she just has to follow her partner’s lead and do the step that fits. But as the guy has to lead, he’s the one who has to decide which steps to use.
Thanks to Clara Natoli for the photo!
