It takes the average guy about
3 months to get to a point where he doesn't look totally uncomfortable. It takes a few years to become a good
dancer.
Learning to dance in 10 days would be Karate Kid-class instruction and practice.
Now, considering
that I am a High School dropout who never attended a prom or a school dance until I got to college, here is my guess
at what you may be facing.
First, I have no idea of how much sitting around and talking the people there will
do. The girls will probably bunch together from time to time to compare notes. Single girls may try to flirt with
single guys to get them to come over and talk or try to dance.
If you see a girl dancing by herself, try to
catch her eye (she may be trying to catch yours). If she looks at you a couple of times, go over and say, "Hey,
show me those steps again." Maybe you can pick it up. Maybe not.
Assuming you are in the USA, the kind of
dancing kids at your school will do probably depends on what kind of music most of them listen to. If you're in a
big city, Hip Hop or some sort of Latin dances might be the preferred style. If you're in the country, you're
probably looking at Two Step or Polkas.
I've seen Hip Hop in a mostly Caucasian/Hispanic club setting. The
only people doing it right were four black girls and the professional dancers up on the stage. About 200 other
girls were sort of slowly undulating, almost in time to the music. Maybe 4 guys were standing in the middle of the
crowd watching their girls dance. They obviously didn't know how to dance and felt stupid being there.
There
may be some kind of "slow dance" somewhere amid the festivities. It's actually a lover's dance, and most guys who
cannot dance can usually save face by holding their girl close and turn slowly. Let her put her head on your
shoulders.
If you can swing your hips in time to the music, you'll score extra points in her esteem.
Two
Step is not all that hard to learn, but dancing Two Step with a partner who really knows how to dance can be
embarassing for you. I accepted an invitation to go Two Step dancing with a girl last year who had been doing it
all her life. I had seen how to do it in the movies, and I took a Square Dancing class in college about 20 years
ago. So, I asked my dance instructor to give me a crash course in Two Step about two nights before I was supposed
to meet Miss Country.
Because I had some dance experience, and because my instructor knew what I was capable of,
we knocked out a basic routine for me to try in the course of an hour.
Even so, when I got out on the floor with
Miss Country, she left me in the dust, so I had to be a man, say, "Hey. I'm VERY rusty. Let's take it slow for a
dance so I can get a feel for your rhythm." She agreed to that and I was able to work up to a better speed.
She
then asked me what kind of dancing I WAS into since I obviously wasn't a Two-Step star. I said, "Salsa."
Next
thing I know, I'm doing a super-fast Salsa to a country song (I have since learned you can dance Salsa or Cha-Cha
to almost any kind of music, except Hip Hop, which works okay with Merengue).
At any rate, because I was loaded
up with pheromones, Miss Country ended up red-faced, horny, and breathless before we finished dancing. She had
plenty of guys asking her to dance, but she kept coming back to me that night.
Hopefully, your girl doesn't
have that much dance experience under her belt, but chances are she can hear the beat better than you and do some
twirling without you.
When I was in college, I taught myself to dance freestyle by practicing at home, alone,
for three weeks before a big school dance. I ended up dancing with about 20 sorority girls because all their guys
didn't know how to dance. Freestyle dancing is what you see in the movies -- John Travolta at the Disco. You have
to be able to move in time or you look like a fool, and unless you're comfortable with looking like a fool, you
don't want to try that in front of a crowd.
Some basic steps you can try to practice would be side steps where
you swing your toes back and forth (watch "Footloose" if you can get it in time). You can swing your arms in
opposition to your feet. Step forward and then step back, or step back and then step forward, might also be easy
enough to master. But you have to be able to do it to the music. And the music is usually too fast and too loud
for a beginner.
BTW -- how do you know this girl will go to the dance with you? Or are you just wanting to hook
up with her at the dance?
And that is about all the insight I can give you on dancing at a school. The college
events I went to, I usually knew people there. If your friends are going, hang with them occasionally to give
yourself a chance to calm down, but make sure you run by the girl and say "Hi" even if you don't have the nerve to
ask her to dance.
Maybe she'll ask you to dance.
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