“Dancing with you is like driving a Porsche.”
I recognized this as a generous compliment from my dance partner, even though I’m not a sports car enthusiast.
Yet to satisfy my curiosity, I searched online to find out what people had to say about driving a Porsche. Here are some findings I believe reflect the intent of the leader’s comment:
“Quick and responsive steering”
flickr.com/photos/mhincha/8232608529/
Fellow blogger Sheila Gregoire and her husband take ballroom dance lessons. In today’s post, she writes about her experience and why she loves it:
Here are some excerpts:
It really does change your relationship. It makes you work together. It makes you smile.
In most areas of our lives today, the sexes are interchangeable. A woman can do whatever a man can do, and vice versa. Dancing is one of the few areas of life where you have to either be a man or be a woman. You each have very defined roles, and it reminds you that you are two very different halves of one whole.
… If you’ve ever longed to hear her [your wife] say, “You decide and I’ll follow,” you’ve got to hit the dance floor.
Dancing doesn’t work if she tries to take control. You [the man] really do get to decide pretty much everything. And once she realizes that it works better that way, she can be putty in your hands. Plus, it is awfully romantic.
While you get to feel like a man, she gets to feel like a princess as you twirl her around. … It’s about treating her like she’s precious, and showing her off to the world. What woman doesn’t want to be treated like that?
Sheila’s comments sound similar to some of my previous posts. It’s nice to get confirmation from another dancer’s point of view.
So what are YOU waiting for? Valentine’s weekend is the perfect time to make plans to take a dance class with your spouse. If you still need more inspiration, listen to these romantic, dance-themed songs this weekend. (Hopefully, I’ve included a little something for everyone … classics, country, musicals, etc.)
• Could I Have This Dance, Anne Murray
• Save the Last Dance for Me, Michael Buble (and others)
• I Just Want to Dance with You, George Strait
• Come Dance With Me, Frank Sinatra (and others)
• Shall We Dance, The King and I Soundtrack
• I Could Have Danced All Night, The King and I Soundtrack
• Dance Me to the End of Love, Leonard Cohen
• Why Don’t We Just Dance, Josh Turner
• We Will Dance, Steven Curtis Chapman
• Dance, Jeff and Sheri Easter
What other dance-themed love songs can you add to the list?
Copr 2010 MarriageDance
I admit I love to dance. So my proposition in this post may be biased. I’ll let you be the judge.
I propose that dancing can express love in any language. I’m not referring to international dialects here especially, though the statement may hold true in that case as well. Specifically, I am referring to the five love languages identified by Dr. Gary Chapman in his book by that title.
Here are the five love languages, according to Dr. Chapman, and how I see dance as a means of expressing each of them:
Quality Time: Giving full attention to your partner in dance, whether you are leading or following, can be an example of the quality time that I believe Dr. Chapman describes.
Physical Touch: This one may be the most obvious. When connected with your spouse in dance frame, there are at least four points of physical contact. These contact points create the channel through which the man communicates the lead and the woman perceives it, so it is essential to stay physically connected with your partner at all times in order to execute the dance.
Acts of Service: By carefully and thoughtfully leading his partner, the man provides service to his wife, the follower. Likewise, I propose that the follower serves her husband, the leader, as she graciously accepts his invitation to follow through with the dance moves he leads
Gifts: Dance lessons could make a great gift for your spouse with the “gifts” language (if he/she wants to learn to dance, that is). I’ll admit it does not have universal appeal. For others, perhaps the gift (as well as being an act of service) may be the leadership and the follower-ship that is offered within the dance.
Words of Affirmation: Like gifts, this one is not as “built in” as the others. But dancing (or learning to dance) provides the perfect opportunity to affirm your partner for what he or she is doing well. That is what your spouse with the “words” language wants to hear.
What do you think of dance as an expression of your love language? Would a date night of dancing with your spouse fill your love tank?
Copr 2010 MarriageDance
In case you need some encouragement for learning to dance with your spouse, here are five great reasons:
1. Dancing is a celebration documented in scripture. As Christians, we celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25, but we have reasons to celebrate all year. Through Christ, our God has blessed us with generous gifts of life, freedom, victory, peace and much more worth celebrating.
2. Enjoying a new recreational activity together can rekindle the romance that brought you together in the first place. Social psychologists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook found that to be the case. Read more.
3. Dancing is a great way to speak the love language of “physical touch.” If this is a primary love language of you or your spouse, dancing will add a new spark to your relationship. Don’t know your love language? Find out here.
4. It’s not as difficult as you may think. Men are usually more hesitant about dancing than women. But in dance workshops I held this year, men were pleasantly surprised to learn that not only could they dance but they actually enjoyed it. Learning a few fundamentals about how dance works, rather than just dance steps, made the difference for them.
5. If you’re still not convinced, watch this fun video for reason number five. Thanks to Sheila Gregoire for sharing it!
What other reasons can you add?
Copr 2009 MarriageDance
A recent experience showed me another lesson from the dance floor that I find applicable to Christian marriage.
I have been dancing for more than 12 years, and during that time many dance steps have become second nature to me. Dancers and athletes aspire to this point when movements are committed to muscle memory, when certain activities or actions are so familiar that they become automatic.
A few weeks ago, a turn of events brought to mind exactly how much I dance on autopilot. My planned dance partner had a medical emergency and was unable to participate in the group lessons we were scheduled to instruct. By God’s grace, I was able to find a dance partner to take his place at the last minute, but I was called upon to lead more of the instruction. It was a challenge to instruct beginning dancers on the steps that had become automatic for me over the years.
Are there steps in your marriage that have become second nature to you? In what ways are you operating on autopilot, and are those ways beneficial or damaging to your relationship? If your autopilot is directing you to act in loving and considerate ways toward your spouse, great! Unfortunately, it is equally as easy for the autopilot to operate in ways less beneficial to your partnership.
Incorrect dance steps can become committed to muscle memory as well as the correct ones. Once that is the case, it can be difficult to unlearn the old habits and relearn the steps correctly.
Wherever you are in your marriage, it’s a good idea to take an occasional inventory of how your autopilot is operating. Identify any bad habits you’ve acquired, and start to learn and practice new steps to replace them. Be graceful and forgiving with each other during the learning.
Copr 2009 MarriageDance
“Beautiful when done right,” commented a recent workshop participant regarding the correlation between marriage and dance.
It’s true that both dance and Christian marriage are objects of beauty when done well, but conversely either can be corrupted and unpleasant.
In a recent blog post entitled The Dark Side of Submission, Lee Grady cites examples of how misinterpretation of the scriptures on the husband’s headship has resulted in abuse of women.
“Traditionalists assume that a Christian marriage is defined as a dominant husband who makes all family decisions while the wife graciously obeys without input. Yet Scripture actually portrays marriage as a loving partnership … ,” he writes.
His post is a reminder that we live in a fallen world where Christian marriages are not always the beautiful dance that they could be.
“Headship, in its essence, is not about ‘who’s the boss.’ Rather it refers to the Genesis account of Eve being taken from Adam’s side. The husband is the ‘source’ of the wife because she originated from him, and she is intimately connected to him in a mystical union that is unlike any other human relationship,” Grady writes.
“Truly Christian marriages, according to the apostle Paul, involve a tender, servant-hearted and unselfish husband who (1) loves his wife ‘just as Christ also loved the church;’ (2) loves her as his own body; and (3) loves her as himself (see Eph. 5:25, 28 33). He stands alongside his wife in faithfulness, and she joyfully respects her husband because he can be trusted. And the two become one.”
Dancing in partnership can provide a picture of this beautiful, active, loving and respectful relationship as it was intended by our Creator.
Copr 2009 MarriageDance