Never thought I would say this...

Here goes....
I have to thank Miss Nikki Wardle... I know! Can you believe I'm saying it?? I can't. But I found myself being very grateful for the way she taught me how to execute a dance with a group of girls. Let me explain... I was asked a few weeks ago in church if I would be interested in helping the Spanish speaking ward in our stake with different stage productions and performances that they put on. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and said I would absolutely love that. So they called me up on Tuesday and asked if I could come in and help a group of girls with a dance that they are preparing. (I'm still not sure what exactly it's for) So I show up to the church and these poor girls are so confused and lost. They're all young women in the ward and they're trying to put a dance together and they just could not work it out without some kind of authoritative figure that knew anything about dancing. The young women leader didn't speak much english but she basically told me she was so glad that I was there to help and then introduced me to the girls and sat down to watch me. haha. So here I am, trying to communicate with these girls to even see what I was dealing with and it was clear that they didn't want to trust me. (I certainly didn't blame them) They tried to do the dance for me so I could see what I was working with and it was quite disastrous. I'm knocking my brain trying to think of how to approach this and I basically had to say, "Look, I'm fairly good at this, if you'll trust me enough to listen to me, I think I could really help you out, now show me the very beginning..."
After a minute of watching and really listening to the music, it started to make sense to me and I was able to map it out. I helped them clean every count of the music and I found myself literally thanking my lucky stars for the knowledge I had from cleaning so many dances with Nikki Wardle. I've never been put in that position of authority in front of a bunch of girls only a few years younger than me, and I actually succeeded! By the end of the night, I think they started to respect me and my methods because it was finally making sense to them and they were able to be confident about it. That's when dancing becomes fun. It's all a big frustration until you finally get it and then you're able to be creative and it becomes something much more than organized movement. I was very grateful for that opportunity...