I am wondering if it might be a culture thing?
I have just done a scan of the whole CS Forum, and there is very little encouragement of dancing with beginners. I did find one thread, which was encouraging, but I think there must be about ten on the (smaller) Aussie forum on the same subject, of how to encourage beginners to dance.
If there arent enough men at dances, I would say the obvious thing to do is get the ladies to ask more male beginners to dance. And even if they aren't the most fabulus dancers in the world to start off with, once they are addicted they will eventually become very satisfactory, I'm sure.
I think this is how the "natural equilibrium" of things happens in Australia, so that we have pretty much balanced gender in every class. As a beginner guy, there were a couple of intermediate/advanced girls who repeatedly asked me to dance, despite my reluctance, despite my mistakes and repertoire of about four moves. At first I was seriously intimidated, but then, kinda flattered that such obviously nice gals would take the time for me! And then I was hooked for good and I've never looked back. I'm sure the demographic makeup of our classes here helped, too... at least 80% of the girls here in Canberra are svelte young 20-somethings, so I really couldn't complain about the company. ))
I guess my question is... how do the ladies in the UK feel about asking beginner guys to dance, and thus ensure the men have a fun time and return?
Bookmarks