‘Stop leading!’ said the poor man trying to dance with me as I dragged him around the floor.
‘Stop leading!’ said the poor man trying to dance with me as I dragged him around the floor.
‘I can’t help it,’ I said, pushing him under my arm and forcing him to perform a series of impromptu pirouettes, ‘you keep going wrong.’
‘That’s not the point,’ he gasped, as I half strangled him in a headlock. ‘I’m meant to lead. You follow.’ Follow, shmollow.
I had been taken to a Ceroc dance class in the genteel confines of Esher civic hall by my friend Amanda, a devotee of the pastime, who told me it was just what I needed to put a smile on my face. I agreed to go on the basis that trying new things is a good way to start the New Year. A few minutes into my first lesson I wasn’t so sure.
‘No thumbs!’ the instructor kept yelling from the platform as she put us through our paces. Seriously? I know Esher is a hotbed of good manners but touching thumbs? Or was this a euphemism that was going over my head? Like the arms of the wildly protesting man I was pushing around.
Thankfully, a system of rotation was in order so we were soon told to move on to the next man down the line. I was hopeful that my new partner would see the benefit in my methods. But, after a few minutes, he too was begging me to ‘stop leading!’.
I tried to explain that I was doing it instinctively, that I was so used to having to take the initiative when it came to men that I had no reason to believe he would be able to cope if I didn’t lead. But he wasn’t at all sympathetic. And nor was the next man. Or the 15 men after that. At which point I had no choice but to examine the possibility that I was wrong.
‘Just try to switch off and let me do the thinking,’ said my next partner, as I explained my difficulty. Fine, I thought, I’ll show you. I’ll stop thinking and we’ll see where it gets us. We’ll be on the floor in a heap in no time.
The music started, the instructor counted us in and we began the steps. I blanked my mind, went as limp as a rag doll and did nothing. And the routine went perfectly. My partner swizzled me around the floor, folded me in a ‘basket’, twirled me under his arms, and returned me to the place where I started with precision timing.
‘What the hell just happened?’ I said, feeling like I had woken into another reality. ‘You let me lead,’ he said. ‘Well done. You’re rather good.’
The rest of the evening passed in a daze. The more I did nothing, the better I danced. The more I thought nothing, the more spectacularly I whirled around the floor. By the end of the night I was twirling on my toes as if I was going to win Strictly.
A huge man with long, flowing hair gave me a particularly good run for my money. He threw me into such complicated and dazzling moves that I felt sure I must look like a professional. He eyed me intensely when the dance ended: ‘You wonder why we men come here?’ he asked. ‘Because it’s the only time we get to tell women what to do.’
Normally, if a man said something like that to me, I would shoot back a killingly witty put-down. But to my amazement the words that came out of my mouth were: ‘Thank you very much.’
As the lights went up, my friend Amanda found me sitting in one of the plastic chairs round the edge of the hall with a blissed-out look on my face. ‘When’s the next one?’ I asked her.
A few days later I was queuing up at Surbiton assembly rooms wearing leg warmers in a bid to look really up for it.
My first partner was a man wearing one golf glove, on his twirling hand. After a few minutes he excused himself saying, ‘I need to go and get my other glove.’
Now, see, normally I would think, ‘What a loser,’ but I thought, ‘Yes, fine, why not?’ And when he came back wearing two brightly coloured golf gloves I was polite and didn’t make a sarcastic comment. Because, well, ladies don’t do that.
A few days later I was back in Esher for my third lesson, where I earned the ultimate compliment as I let one of the teachers fling me around the floor during the free style section of the evening.
‘You’re great to dance with,’ he said.
‘Really?’ I said, beaming with pride.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re an instinctive follower.’
Who would have thought it?
Melissa Kite is deputy political editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
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