Dance Has No Age Requirement!

From The Connecticut Post:

Trumbull woman still stepping lively at 89
89-year-old winning dance competitions right and left
By Noelle Frampton, Staff Writer
Updated: 08/24/2009

TRUMBULL -- Kathleen Wander is a prodigy, but not in the usual sense. In fact, she flips the typical concept on its proverbial ear. Then she twirls it, dips it and waltzes off with it.

Embodying grace in motion, Wander has won first place in her bracket at all but five of 44 separate ballroom dance contests and placed second in a regional tournament earlier this month.

But the town resident had been dancing only two years. And she's 89.
In the embrace of a waltz, she glides across the polished wood floor at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Trumbull, her eyes shining, her head held high, her feet twinkling in silver dancing heels. She laughs when she messes up and tells a reporter with a slight English accent, "Look away, dear," then goes right back to work.

Her sparkling blue eyes are wide with mirth, fun and zest for living as she says she's in love with her 28-year-old dance instructor, Kristofer Speer, "who refuses to marry me."

"Everybody knows I'm crazy about Kris, and he says he's waiting for me to grow up," she said during her lesson Thursday.

Wander wasn't always so comfortable at the White Plains Road studio, however. After spotting an ad and recalling how she'd always wanted to learn ballroom dancing, she tried calling four times before she got the courage to come in.

"I thought they'd think I was too old to start dancing," she said.
Speer said initially he was careful not to do anything too fancy or "let her go" in a twirl. But soon, he said, he found Wander strong and up for a challenge -- combining true enjoyment with patience and persistence.

"I push. I might as well have a bullwhip, but she sticks with it," he said. "She's beaten people who are in their 60s at tournaments." Turning to Wander, he told her that she exudes the gliding grace of a bygone time: "The grace of a woman from the golden era of movies."

"I love Kathleen," Speer added. "She puts smiles on people's faces when she walks through the door. People naturally want to walk over and talk to her. She has a certain magnetism."

Wander has competed in three regional Fred Astaire-sponsored competitions and another national contest in Florida. Her performances include dances such as the cha cha, fox trot, rumba, swing, tango and Viennese waltz with Speer.

At the most recent competition in Mystic, over the first weekend in August, she danced all weekend and was awarded 39 firsts in her age bracket of 76 and up, four seconds and one third, she said.

An avid skier until age 84, Wander won first in one tournament, where the age bracket widens to include 61 and up, and second in two others. Even in the national arena, she took several firsts, Speer said, adding that most competitors have been dancing longer than Wander.

Already looking forward to her next competition in November, also in Mystic, Wander plans to keep dancing "till my legs give out." Wander, a widow of four years, finds the competitions to be good social outlets.
"One of the nicest things about being old is that you can flirt like hell and nobody cares," she chuckled. "I've never flirted before in my life -- I'm having a ball. Nobody gets fresh with anyone else. They're there for the pure joy of dancing " and loving every minute of it. It's the most marvelous thing in the world that you could do. It's exhilarating, the music is beautiful. If you're fit, I don't think age matters. I want to be the best I can."
For all her spunkiness, Wander said, she's "amazed" each time she is awarded first place.

She was interested in writing and art in her younger years, but dropped out of high school in England at 16 to care for her sick mother, went to business school at night and became a secretary out of necessity.

Later in America, she looked after her ailing husband, who passed away after 40 years of happy marriage.

When the woman who has spent most of her life caring for others thought of how healthy and strong her body is, she shook her head.

"I am really blessed," she said. "I don't know anybody my age who's as lucky as I am. I don't know why God is so good to me, but he is. I think he likes to watch me dance."