I’m Flying! – At Sea – [12/09/2014]

There are things that people say when they know you can dance that you just kind of learn to not take seriously. The statement “if they play a fast swing, I’m tossing you on stage” is one of them – I’ve had people say that to me before, and it’s just such an unthinkable thing that I always laugh it off.

And then someone actually does it.

Seroiusly? I could get in HUGE trouble!

So blame me, I’m leaving in two days, if there’s trouble I’ll take it

Yeah…right

That was the extent of the conversation that I had with the ballroom instructor during the Officer’s Ball last night. He had promised me a dance, and we’d agreed to go a bit all out, because we could. But I naturally expected that it would be on the floor – even after the above. I mean we’ve only had one dance together and that was over a month ago! So yes, I assumed we would stay on the main dance floor.

It wasn’t.

You ready?

And then his hands were around my waist and he simply lifted me up onto the stage. I’m enough of a performer that I was able to just go “okay, I’m up here now, guess I’d better just go”

The first tumble flip the crowd realized what was going on; by the second we were getting cheers, by the third the crowd was ours. And this was complicated stuff, I hadn’t done in a long time, stuff that I didn’t even know I knew how to do. Something around five aerials in one number? That’s something you usually have a lot more prep for. Not that I wasn’t happy, I mean I was thrilled! But I was spending half of the time trying to make sure I could keep up and the other half being in a silent panic of “ohmygoodnessI’mgoingtobeinsomuchtrouble!” because let’s face it, one is not really *supposed* to jump spontaneously up on stage!

But I will admit…it was pretty awesome. Despite the meltdown I had afterwards due to my irrational fear of getting fired for doing it!

And the wave of applause that hit me afterward as he spun me out into the classic ballroom bow (double underarm turn, drop to curtesy, I’d never actually had a chance to do it before!) that…that was worth the worry that I had about it.