“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross
Sometimes you expect, or even need someone to do one thing and they end up doing the opposite.
At all levels of social dancing, it’s not uncommon for a lead to be misinterpreted or either dancer to miss a step.
Complete disaster? Is the immaculate choreography ruined?
Perhaps not, unless you’ve dropped someone on their head. Did you happen to dance with Stone Cold Steve Austin?
What really matters is how you handle that mistake.
Your partner, onlookers and even your humble self will appreciate not making a scene.
It could even be the making of the routine, despite the perfectly sterile routines in our minds.
But isn’t it our minds who control the body? So maybe part of us wants to make that mistake. If the mistake is intentional, is it still a mistake?
When Herbie Hancock first played in Miles Davis’ string quartet he played a clanger, a wrong chord [clang!]. Miles paused, then played some improvised notes that made the chord right.
“I thought I had just, like … we had built a house of cards and I just destroyed them all, you know?.. It took me years to realize Miles didn’t judge my chord, I did.” – Herbie Hancock
The dance equivalent to improving a melody to for the chord would be a follower styling out the rest of that bar of music instead of stopping or apologizing.
I think this is not only an important attitude to have on the dancefloor, but in life.
Calamity and resolution is a story. Everything going well is also a story, but one where nothing was learned and no room for growth.
All movement is technically a dance move. Next time you trip just claim you were breakdancing.
Forgotten everything, standing oddly still? That’s just contemporary! Make sure to snatch at the air a bit and pull it into your chest.
My backup is always to shimmy responsibly.