Friday, January 13, 2012
Closing the back door, fixing our mistakes before we make them.
Happy New Year! I wish you all a great 2012 full of Health and Fitness, and especially, while dancing throughout the year with Arthur Murray Dance Studios! This is our 100th Anniversary…. so Let’s Celebrate!
Ever wish you could go back and change something? A harsh word said, a thoughtless action, a bad decision. Have you ever been driving home and said, “Oh, I wish I could take that back”, or, “I could have handled that differently”. I think we have all had those moments of enlightened regret over some of our life’s decisions and actions.
Solution…what if we could take a moment and think about our words and actions BEFORE, rather than after, they happened? What if we first took a deep breath, paused, and thought of our words before they were uttered? An old verse reads: “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” Also it is said: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
What may be the result of saying the right thing at the right time? “Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.” I must confess that I have at times an acerbic tongue. My tendency is to be quick to anger and even faster to speak. Yet, with all my soul I am trying to practice the perfect mathematics of having two ears and one mouth, and to listen twice as much as I speak.
Dancing is a great tool for this technique. In dancing, we must know our patterns which are polished through practice. We must know how to move with a partner and connect with them. Dancing requires us to know what we are doing AHEAD of time and how to put our patterns together in an appealing way. We must also know how to change steps in mid-stream depending on the other dancers on the floor, varying music, or just moving to a new dance all together.
What if we could live life this way? Having partnership and connection at the front of our thoughts and a smooth delivery that is well thought out. Ballroom dancers have it made. We know how to maneuver across the ballroom using floor craft, showing the style and character of the dance, while we are presenting our partner and pleasing our audience.
World peace… I would like to be asked to teach a ballroom dance lesson at the United Nations. I would teach everyone how to greet a partner, invite them to dance, guide a partner onto the floor, and thank them at the end. I think we would all have happier and more peaceful lives if we used the partnership and connection of ballroom dancers.
Next Week: Closing the Back Door!
Very Sincerely,
David Woodbury
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