Fall

So on Wednesday night in Ray's group, I fell for the first time in ballroom. It's a sickening feeling. I was dancing with little Alec. He is a fourteen year old that come up basically to my chest level. We were doing a really fast intricate quickstep. Crazy Sam, who has been dancing for at least 15 years now and still sucks, was doing his own thing and cut behind Alec and me. Now because of our height difference, Alec could not see directly behind me and I caught Sam leg with my leg and down I went. I was terrified of taking little Alec with me, so I pushed him off of me to ensure that he would not be injured. I tried to land as gracefully as possible without hurting anything important, eg. legs, back, head, feet. Instead I landed squarely on my tail bone.

I got up not terribly injured, but my butt was developing a knot already, but with a very bruised ego and extreme anger. You see, Sam never does what Ray tells him to. He doesn't listen and he is all over the place. It is hard to listen to Ray and do what you are supposed to when your partner is doing whatever the heck they want. So I already am severely annoyed with Sam and then because he is not doing what he is supposed to, I land on my butt. He walks up to me and says, "I did not get in the way." I said, "Actually, I did catch your foot." He says, "Oh" and walks away. Now I am seething. He made a woman fall, blames her for it, finds out he is to blame, and doesn't apologise? Really?

I find out that poor Alec went home and cried. He was so afraid that he had hurt me and that it was his fault. And while I don't typically have much sympathy or patience for Alec because he is a cocky hyper little kid, he was doing really well that night and totally surprised me.

So, here's the part where I am a bad person. The next night I am at the next Ray lesson and I am led out to the side in the direction of Sam and because Sam is never where he is supposed to be, his foot ends up squarely underneath my heel. And while this was a total accident. I felt a certain sense of poetic justice. I apologised to him and he would hear nothing of it. Oh well. Thus is the life of ballroom dancers.