Frank Sinatra. Swishy skirts. A handsome partner.
My first time swing dancing was amazing. My boyfriend and I decided to go dancing since we finally found a night when neither of us were working and the Interchange (a local coffee shop) was hosting a swing dance. Score! 😀 So we got dressed up in vintage-y style clothes and decided to hit the dance floor.
For the first time. For both of us.
Needless to say, we both needed a bit of a lesson.
To be honest, it was kind of stressful in the beginning. The dance instructor was going a bit too fast for the both of us, stepping too fast and jumping right into the spinning. We weren’t ready for that yet, we were still trying to nail the basics. To be fair though, Cody and I are both perfectionists to some degree. But we kept fumbling and becoming more nervous and more awkward with each step.
Thankfully, the instructor was really nice (and slightly awkward himself) and let us practice at our own pace in the corner while the rest of the group advanced on to the actual “swing” part of the dance.
As we practiced in the corner, we fumbled a lot, and, because I was so eager to get better right away, I ended up leading most of the time.
That turned out to be problematic.
Why was it a problem? Because Cody was supposed to lead, and I was supposed to follow. But I basically forced him to follow me. It made him slightly flustered and confused because the instructor told him that he was supposed to lead, but I was taking charge and being more assertive about where we would step and turn and spin. You’d think that this would’ve turned out positively, right? Actually, it made us fumble even more, because there was two leaders-not partners.
This taught me a lot about marriage.
You might be thinking, “What?! How did you get a marriage lesson from dancing for the first time? Are you married??”
First of all, no, I am not married. 🙂 Secondly, I learned a lot about the roles of a husband and wife and how they should work together for things to go smoothly.
In the context of a Biblical marriage, the husband is the head, the leader. The wife is the helper, the follower. This concept can be misconstrued as inequality in a relationship. But I think marriage is a lot like dancing. When you look at a dancing couple, what do you see? Do you see one partner doing more than the other? No. Of course not. Why?
Because they’re partners, equal in everything-but their respective roles are different.
Can the man force the girl to dance with him? No. She has to accept willingly-it’s her choice. Can the woman force her lead on the man? Not really. Especially not if he’s trying to lead first. You can’t have two leaders. It’s just too difficult. But why? Because if he’s trying to lead, and you’re trying to lead, you’re going to want to dance to your own step, your own rhythm, your own speed -and he’ll want to go to his own. Whereas if you’re partners, and you let the man take the lead, things will balance out harmoniously. That doesn’t mean you let him drag you all over the dance floor or make you dance until you pass out from exhaustion. Absolutely not. It’s all a balance of give and take, of lead and follow.
It’s easy to be partners. It’s difficult to be co-leaders.
Okay, but how do the man and woman know how to dance together harmoniously? Simple enough answer: they need a teacher.
I’m trusting God and His Word to be my teacher. Because after one dance lesson, oh boy, I sure need a LOT more practice to be a good partner. 😉
All in all, I immensely enjoyed my first dance. It was with my boyfriend (who also danced for the first time) and we just had a blast. I definitely want to go out on the town again like that, because you just can’t beat the sound of vinyl, a string of lights overhead, mahogany, and delicious cheesy bacon bread. <3