If I have a good male lead when dancing, I can close my eyes and follow him without missing a beat. I did this with several different dance partners the Saturday night of the St. Patrick's Day dance. I haven't been dancing very much in years so I'm rusty. Besides, I'm not the kind who counts the steps (I don't do numbers), I just do it intuitively. With a strong lead.
The number one complaint that men have about dancing is that women don't know how to follow when they try to lead. And women have no idea how to follow a man anymore because they are used to competing with men in the workplace … if they aren't in charge of the whole shebang.
Women have no idea how to follow a man on the dance floor or off of it.
When you go to a couples dance class, invariably the female instructor will say, "This is your chance to lead gentlemen. Tomorrow you'll be following her again!"
Can you close your eyes and "allow" your husband to lead? The way he leads? Juliana Slattery in Finding the Hero in Your Husband goes into detail about this process.
Personally I find ballroom dance is the perfect metaphor for Theology of the Body principles.
If you want to know about the ultimate in partnering, learn to dance the tango. In this dance particularly, the woman has to trust her partner so she can relax into his lead. She has to be able to trust that he will lead her and not dance them into the sound system speakers or the table with the punch bowl. The man has to lead, not be passive or limp, or it just won't work.
The man walks across the dance floor and extends his hand to the woman in invitation to dance. She can accept his gift or not. She puts her hands firmly on his shoulder so she can use her hands to push him back if he pulls her too close. There is a tension in their arms which is called giving weight which helps a man to lead. If arms are limp, then the man can't lead. In the Rumba, there is something called the chase. The man walks away from the woman and she follows after him. When they are close, she pushes him away and dances in the other direction. Naturally, he chases.
Does this sound familiar?
Go tell your honey you want to follow him with your eyes closed. Show him (not tell him) that you want him to lead. Make him feel like a man — because they are endowed by the Creator to lead — and see what happens!
