My Golden Dancers

Aura of Happiness

By Elita Sohmer Clayman

Would you believe that just walking into the dance studio for the first time in 364 days gave me such a contented thrill? By contented thrill, I mean a feeling of happiness and also exuberance that I finally came back to my dance roots.

Dance roots can mean different things to various people. To me, it signifies that I am now feeling better for the first time since our automobile accident last June 2008, and that there is a real possibility that I will be dancing very soon. We came that Saturday morning at 1130 a.m. because the studio was having an Expo type activity so people could come in and get acquainted with the facility. They could also bring new or used dance shoes they no longer wanted to be able to sell them to others who may want a less-than-average priced shoe.

The owner of the studio greeted both my husband and I with a dear hug and kiss. We were as happy to see her as she was to see us. It had been a long ten months. We missed (at least I did) the beauty of the studio and the warmth of the owner. We missed the beautiful wood floor and the ambience of the atmosphere. We missed getting out there on the floor and doing our dance steps, routines, and just plain old having fun.

The roots of dance were planted in the soil of our hearts over 32 years ago when we stepped or danced our way into the first studio where we took together our first dance lesson way back then. I have always wanted to and loved to dance and this was a momentous occasion then for us to go as a couple and also a married couple.

Our love for dance or should I say, my love for dance was nurtured through my years of being single by taking a group of lessons when I was working and earning a good salary. I went to a studio and signed up for 50 lessons but I did not have an encouraging teacher to water my seeds of dance feeling. I finished up the course not really knowing too much more than when I started there. Then I took a few lessons with a fellow I was dating named David and he too did not awaken anything new in me about dancing.

The years passed with marriage and children and still I yearned to really learn to dance and the thought occurred in my mind that possibly I could compete. When we walked into the studio on November 2, 1977, the first thing I saw on the shelves there were some trophies some of the students had won. Right then and there, I knew that was what I wanted for my shelves. I had a carpenter come in many years later to custom make white shelves so I could display my competition trophies. I dust them every week with love in my heart for what they stand for in my dancing amateur career. Hard work and diligent and unrelenting time spent studying the world of ballroom dance.

Ten lessons evolved into ten or more years of taking lessons, competing, social dancing and just plain enjoying the social dances held on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons.

Until the accident we would go to them at least three times a month. Then it all stopped and for one solid year we were unable to go due to numerous aches and pains from being hit hard by a man texting and running a red light.

Now the year has passed with many medical decisions and many sessions of physical therapy. We are ready. Going to the Expo for a few hours to sell some unused dance shoes really watered my dance appetite again. We sat there for an hour or so and watched some new students take free 15 minute try-outs with various teachers to see who they wanted to teach them if they decided to take dance lessons. We watched one teacher coach five men on converting some Rumba steps they knew to Bolero steps.

Finally, we left and I felt the aura of dance happiness surround my head. I was back where I am most often spending the happiest hours I am involved in.

As I so often speak about what ballroom dancing means to me, so again I am able to articulate about it in a more meaningful and current manner. It seems that next Sunday we will be back there and if we can only dance just a few dances since we are returning and have to be careful in what actions we take in our first day of dancing; then so be it.

I have decided if we only dance four or five dances, we will be ahead of the time because we will have again started our voyage in the beautiful sea of dance. The sea is calm now and the water is blue and we will dance serenely and be at peace doing so. We survived the terrible accident and are now back to begin our weekly ballroom dancing once again.

As Shakespeare said “Those who have self control truly own their beauty.”
Dancing is surely beauty in motion and our emotions determine our motion. In the Broadway play from many years ago called Annie based on the original comic strip called Orphan Annie, the main character Annie says that tomorrow will be good and they sing a whole song called "Tomorrow" that became a big hit on the music scene back then.

So tomorrow became now and next Sunday will be the tomorrow I was thinking about for one whole year almost to the day when I will arrive at the studio and once more dance a few dances. Each week, I will progress and dance more and more dances until the hours there will be filled with continuous dances. Tomorrow will be now and I will have won out over the aches and pains and the pains and aches. I will be the victor because I waited till tomorrow and tomorrow will be glorious. The no dancing time was a long period but now the glory days are upon us (especially me) and I will savor every minute I am doing it.

When I dance, I feel at peace and I in turn can encourage others to take up dancing and therefore I can be an amicable supporter of a different kind. I can be a harmonious person by trying to inspire and support new dancers- to not wait till tomorrow but to know that today is the day when they will enter the journey of dancing for the health of it, for the enjoyment of it and mainly for the peace they will feel when accomplishing this wondrous thing called dance. They will have self control and possess their own beauty.

We are bold when we decide to think about taking ballroom dancing lessons. We know we will find magic in doing so; and if we think we can do it, we should begin it. Whatever you can do or even think you may be able to do, and then surely we should set it into motion. We should all have hope with everything we attempt. That is the courage of life and dreams.

We will be kindling a new flame into our lives and our life will be brighter for it. We can do it, begin it and continue the light that will brighten our heart and be an everlasting beam that glistens into our daily existence.

We can accomplish the almost highest thing we want by being confident and secure and when we ballroom dance, we receive added self esteem and self assurance because we know we are doing something really special.

We set into motion a fulfilling adventure that will culminate in a special happiness so profound we will often wonder how we lived without it.

Annie in the play said "Tomorrow, tomorrow" and she surely knew that tomorrow would be so splendid it would make up for any days that were not that perfect. If we can only project that tomorrow will be blessed with good and kind events then we will have fulfilled our destiny in becoming happy. Ballroom dancing is like no other sport because in learning to perform it; we have boldness, adventure, motion, emotion and most of all a constant beginning of something so perfect to begin with that the final perfection we achieve is the ultimate reward.

The aura of dance happiness is in our soul. Hillel, a Jewish sage, said our soul is a guest in our body and deserves hospitality. Hospitality that is affable with the happiness we receive from this thing called dancing.

The more you do it, the more you benefit from its graciousness and you will observe how it makes you feel. The feeling sometimes is overwhelming and it fills your heart with the peace you deserve all the days of your lives.

Keep on Dancing

You can email me at elitajerrydancing@verizon.net