Learn to ballroom dance

“Today I had my first ballroom lesson in 21 years. When I was sixteen, I was 'forced' to take dancing lessons, but it was the kind of culture where we all had to do it, and as a man you were made fun of if you actually enjoyed it (and my dancing partner very much didn't which also didn't help). I had soooo much fun. I should probably also mention I'm transgender (mtf) and in dancing I was able to let so much go that I've kept in my whole life. The rest of the day I had so much energy, confidence and joy. I've practised while cooking, and basically in every free moment cause I'm already addicted to this feeling”

“Hello! I'm on a journey of putting myself out there more and I've chosen ballroom dancing as one of the ways I'm going to do that. I had my first introductory lesson tonight at a nearby Arthur Murray studio and it was a lot of fun! I'm excited to continue working with them for a while as I get my feet under me and figure out which direction I want to take this. I have some pretty basic questions I want to toss out there first before I go spelunking through all the material on this subreddit and lose sight of my mindset after this first lesson. Here goes! 1. Where do I look? I feel like this is everyone's first question so there it is as mine. [...] 3. This is probably related to the last question, but what should I be doing with the rest of my body? I'm moving my feet in very specific ways and my upper body partly occupied by being in contact with my partner but what beyond that? How much should my hips or my shoulders or maybe my head be moving? My instructor pointed out that I was tensing up my upper body during the Hustle and I think it was for balance reasons! I focused on staying loose after she mentioned it but it was tricky.”

“It all started with a bribe to get Joe to take dance lessons — I would go on a cruise with him if he started taking ballroom dance lessons with me. I don’t like cruises, and Joe was not into dance lessons. I thought that if we were diligent and really practiced, we could master this ballroom dance stuff before the end of the year. Of course, Georgi listened to all this and didn’t laugh, at least not during our lessons. We discovered that Joe and I both favored the cha cha, rumba and swing, but felt like two bulls in a china shop dancing the waltz and foxtrot.”