Greetings to all the leaders and followers on social dance floors everywhere out there in blog land! Another day here in John’s Little Corner and another day loving life! Speaking of love and life, how is your love life going these days? Is it on track and going the direction it needs to go? Are you sharing things together on a deep enough level? How strong is that bond between you? Whether you are just dating, married, partnered or even the “friends with benefits” type of relationship, going social dancing , from Country Two Stepping to Salsa dancing around Phoenix, truly does help in your love life. So today I want jump into this topic and elaborate on how dancing improves romance at home and beyond!

No matter where you are in your journey to becoming a confident social dancer, one thing is for sure, knowing how to Country, Swing or Latin dance means fun date nights! Even better for those of you who are bargain shoppers like myself, a possible inexpensive date night! If you’re just starting out taking private lessons together, each lesson is a mini date in itself. How cool is that!? Can it be challenging, yes, but the rewards for the challenge are unlimited and everlasting. Think endless romantic opportunities wherever music is playing. Holding your sweetie tight and swaying to your favorite dance music.

If you are half way into your dance lessons and able to complete combinations on a dance floor, there is a sense of accomplishment that you both will share. And when you have reached that level of dance where instruction is no longer needed and you are creating your own dancing moves, then you have made one heck of a memorable date night. How many couples can really do that well? Anywhere you are in your journey of dance (unless you count the gas money for the trip to the Country bar or Latin Club, or if there is a cover charge at the door), a date night of dance costs you $0.00! How awesome is that to know that the investment you made in your dance lessons begins to pay itself back immediately. The more dates you go on, the more payback you get. And the best part is that you will grow more confident dancing each time you give it a try.

More dates! How does that sound to you? A date is time away from work, life and children, and gives you the opportunity to connect or reconnect with your partner. How often do you look around you when you are out, lets say at work or at the store or at a restaurant? I do all the time. You see couples walking next to each other but not holding hands, or even worse they walk behind one another! Or how about the couple at the table across from yours. They sit in silence and look around while they eat, never saying anything more than, “This tastes good”. Depending on your line of work, you may even see similar situations with couples, that no matter what their proximity to one another, there is distance between them. Life does this to us and yet life also gives us the solutions… if we know where to look. Time away from it all, even if for a short amount of time, is key to a successful rewarding relationship. It’s right up there with communication being important to the relationship, and dance solves both of those! Get away and take a social ballroom dance lesson, share in something, create a conversation from that lesson you shared and do that as often as you can. Make time before it is lost, or in many cases too late to try! You will see that even after the lessons are over with you will be closer than you were and have something to talk about and something to share, not just with yourselves, but with others around you.

Let’s not forget romance as it does fade away if you allow it to. And it’s easy to let romance slip from your relationship. You spend all that time in the beginning getting to know one another and learning how the other person lives and has lived. You make compromises and creative solutions to blend your life styles together and once that has been established, then what? We drift apart unintentionally with all life throws at us and since we already know all there is to know about the other we begin to grow silent and lose the connection we worked so hard to build. Dance is all about connection, and as you learn it together, it fills that void of silence between you and opens you back up to one another, just like in the beginning. Now that’s romance! Its not the flowers, chocolates or gifts…romance is quality time together where no matter what is happening around you. Your entire world is right there moving along the track of life with you.

Now hopefully you answered my earlier question with a positive answer, but if not, or if you truly could not answer my question, it’s not too late! The fact that you can see the need for more connection in your relationship is a true blessing that your partner needs to share in with you. So grab your partner’s hand, pull them close, and show them with your body language how much they mean to you. Show your partner how much time you want with them, away from everything else, and let them feel how romantic the two of you are together!
From Johns Little Corner, I’m John, thanks for reading, and I will see you hopefully on the dance floor and not at a silent table across from mine!