Welcome to another beautiful day here in John’s Little Corner. Life is such a wonderful thing if you take the time to stop and look at it. Yet we overlook so much and disconnect from the world due to our busy day to day schedules. Work, children, traffic, doctors visits, more work…it just keeps adding on as we go further and further down our paths in life. The things we miss in our routines can be as simple as a sunset and the change of seasons. When was the last time you said this…” Oh hey, wow, did it rain?” It can also be said that our routines cause us to miss more important things like a loved one’s birthday, your kid’s big game or even more important your relationship with your significant other. You would think that something as important as our relationship with our wife, husband, fiancee, life partner or even just a boyfriend or girlfriend would be easy to pay attention to, but more often than not, it’s taken for granted. Now everyone knows that relationships take work, but not just when it gets bad. In fact, they take constant effort and need to be constantly observed and handled with care if they are to be everlasting. So take a moment right now and stop, take a good outside look at the relationship you are in! It’s ok, take a minute, I’ll wait for you. …………………………………………………………………

Whatever it is you came to realize about your relationship, I hope that you see things that could be improved upon, no matter how good you think your relationship is right now. Are you sure they think the same thing? Are you sure?

How can you reconnect with that certain someone who is so much a part of your life? Can you keep that love strong or can you bring it back to the strength it once was when it first began? Well I’m sure by now you can guess what my answer to these questions is going to be…dance, right? Well yes but more specifically, private couple’s dance lessons!

Remember when you met your love? How it felt when you first kissed, the first time you stayed the night together and that first morning waking up to them? Wasn’t it a great feeling that seems to continue on like that for a while!? Then slowly as we go along our intertwined paths, we begin to get comfortable, taking those kisses and mornings more and more for granted till its just something you do and no longer something you pay attention to. Remember all those great talks you had that seemed to go so quick until you looked at your phone and saw that it was really like two hours? Now the talks can seem long but they are short, and perhaps more and more time comes between them. If you add children to the equation, you just sealed the deal on all the fore mentioned statements. Now it’s only one of you gets up, but not the other, to feed, change, dress and get the kids ready for the day. Then hopefully yourself, while the other is doing their thing, you contribute to the household. We lose our connection and sometimes it’s not realized until its too late. You try to fix it with expensive therapy sessions and then if attorneys get involved, watch that money roll right out of your hands along with your relationship. So I’m going to ask you again, Are you sure its as strong as you think? I’m not trying to scare you my friends, I’m just trying to make you stop and see the bigger picture for yourselves.

Now lets take a look at what Country, Latin or Swing dance lessons does for you as a couple. First, it will bring you together onto common ground. As equals, you both will be learning together from the beginning, as well as growing together. Couple’s dance lessons will also help you to begin to find a way to bring back communication with each other. Communicating issues you have with the way your partner is doing something on the dance floor is crucial! Let him/her know if they are turning you to early or trying to take control of the dance; then when you try and apply this practice to life outside of dance, watch it help bring things to a level they need to be at. Taking this journey together WILL bring you closer together, it will bring back that connection and carve a new path for you to travel along (or dance along) :). I have seen couples carry their problems with them into the dance studio on many occasions, but never have I seen them still being carried by them when they were done with their lessons. Usually they have either forgotten what it was or they worked it out together while dancing. I have overheard ‘I’m sorry’ plenty of times while a couple was dancing together, and not because they did a move wrong, they are usually doing a move they know very well at the time!

It’s not easy to make a connection and even harder to make a re-connection. Especially when you have other things constantly going on around you like children and work. As couples we have to be able to get away from those constant distractions if we are going to be able to have a healthy relationship. Taking Salsa or Two Step dance lessons is an escape for most every couple because it feels so much better dealing with the bump and grind on a dance floor vs the bump and grind of life!

Some couples think that once the children are asleep is when they can have their quality time and escape; in reality it really isn’t much of an escape! That time is spent picking up, cleaning lil messes, fix the leaky toilet and if you’re lucky catch up on that book or TV show. We start filling up that time with the unfinished chores of our day/week/year and once again lose sight of our need for quality time together. One hour a day can make such a difference when you share something together as one. That tiny escape from reality can make all the difference. I have a couple who have actually told their children their Tango dance lessons are for two hours now, even though it’s only one, so they can play hooky and stop and have an ice cream or some other type of treat before going back home and back to the every day routine! Dance became a reason/excuse for couples to take more time for themselves. We all need a vacation from time to time so how nice is it when you can have many little mini vacations throughout your week.

Yet let’s not forget the biggest benefit for couples to take lessons together, romance! Now I am talking mostly to you fellows out there in blog world because there are so few of us romantics left out here. You see some of the movies our gals watch or some of the books they read about how Pablo comes in and sweeps young Rebecca off her feet in a manor that only a writer could create. Imagine social ballroom dance as a way to write that novel. Each move is a sentence in the paragraph about the moment that you’re in. You start slow with simple sways, grow that into just a simple basic move, and  follow it with a slightly larger move like an outside turn, then an inside turn built to a climax of rotating rocks and multiple turns! Whew! Slowly bring it back down to a simple basic again and sway her into a dip for the finish. (It sort of sounds like I’m cooking a recipe…)

All you need, besides the knowledge on how to do all that, is the right moment and the right place! Remember to take a look at the big picture around you and you will find that there are plenty of those moments out there. Did she have a bad day at work or at home? Hold her as she shares that stress with you and begin to slowly sway. Or how about on a drive at night you just pull the car over as if something may be wrong. Go to the front of the car into the headlights and make it look like you’re investigating. Signal her to come out for a little help and when she does…dance man, dance! Now ladies, that doesn’t mean us guys don’t like a little romance too. We just keep it hidden so we will not lose our membership to the Men’s Club. We would like to be surprised with flowers every now and then, or our favorite candy left for us somewhere we will see on our way out to work. How about this, you see us frustrated while fixing the car or doing yard work, as messy as we might be at that moment, grab us from behind and hold us for a second. We will turn to kiss you and when we do, make us lead you in a dance. Chances are we will have music playing nearby while we work on what ever it is we are working on. Just because as leaders on the dance floor we make all the moves doesn’t mean we have to make ALL the moves…wink, wink!

So remember, being a couple is easy, staying a couple takes work and effort on both parts. So play those parts together with couple’s dance lessons and watch how much more time for each other will be created! How the communication you have with each other will be improved and understood by one another more easily.

Think of how your children will view their lives when they see how their parents share something with each other. Watch them take your lessons and apply it to their future relationships and hopefully find and enjoy a life long love. Most important, keep the romance alive for both of you. A famous man once said, “All you need is love.” I’m not famous by any means, and as much as that saying holds true in my heart, I believe all you need is dance!

So before I start sounding like a therapist, I am going to say goodbye for now. Because I have a couple’s dance lesson to give and will be helping them have another little mini vacation here in Johns Little Corner! So, until next time, keep dancing, keep loving and keep taking time to see life all around you!