- April 24, 2024
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Peter Walsh recently learned to walk again.
Or, rather, that’s the metaphor he uses to describe how foreign it felt learning the proper way to cross a dance floor with his wife, Carrie, during their recent ballroom dance classes — his first dance lessons of any kind.
The pair started taking lessons in November from Joshua Alexander at Empire Ballroom Studios after deciding they want to surprise their friends with a choreographed routine at their 20th wedding anniversary. The celebration will be their third vow renewal — they “get married” every five years — and this time it will be May 21 in Napa Valley, California.
Five minutes into an interaction with them, the couple’s choice of anniversary festivities begins to make sense.
“They know that we’re taking dance lessons, but they think that’s just something fun that we decided to do together,” Carrie says of the five couples joining them for the celebration. “Most people think we’re crazy anyway.”
Some might agree after learning what the couple agreed to do after a couple months of lessons.
Carrie and Peter will compete in the Sarasota Challenge ballroom dance competition March 26 at Hyatt Regency Sarasota. It will be their first time performing in front of a crowd other than a small “mini match” held Feb. 5 at the studio.
Alexander persuaded the pair to perform in the mini match by purposefully forgetting to inform them there would be a judge, meaning it was less of a showcase and more akin to a legitimate ballroom dance competition.
“We certainly didn’t know what we were showing up for because we brought a couple bottles of wine, and the judge was like, ‘You’re not opening that yet,’” Carrie says. “We thought it was kind of a party.”
“It was!” Alexander says in response.
“In the end,” Carrie replies.
After she danced 64 dances over five hours, that is.
Sid Pocius created the Sarasota Challenge dance competition nine years ago because, when he first moved here from Lithuania in 2001, he was shocked to find the city had no contest.
Pocius, owner of Empire Ballroom Studios, says he has continued to dance since childhood because he loves competitions. He believes ballroom dancers are lucky because not every genre of dance offers the competition experience.
In his native Lithuania, Pocius says it was not uncommon to open the local newspaper and find the results from the previous week’s ballroom dance competition. He understands that’s not the case in the U.S. because, unlike many European countries, ballroom isn’t considered a sport. But he says he felt obligated to create an outlet for the public to gain a better understanding of the dance genre.
“I wanted to extend my experience — my love for dance competitions, to Sarasota,” he says. “There are much cheaper venues in Fort Myers or St. Pete, but I love Sarasota and that’s my motivation, that’s my mission.”
Peter and Carrie agree that ballroom dance — and especially preparing for a competition — is much harder than they ever anticipated.
“Half of it is learning how to dance and half of it is learning how to actually walk and place your feet and transfer your weight — things you think you’ve known how to do since you were a kid,” Peter says. “Just placing your feet and being intentional with it — it’s surprisingly strange to be so intentional.”
Another obstacle for Peter is that in ballroom dance, the male partner is expected to be the leader, meaning it falls on him to decide what step to take next, what direction to move, when to turn Carrie, etc.
The weight of this responsibility becomes clear upon learning that, at a traditional ballroom dance competition, there is no such thing as a choreographed dance routine. Instead, competitors are broken into categories by skill level and subgenre — tango, foxtrot, etc. Once they hit the floor with nine of so other couples, they don’t know what song is going to play. All they know is the style of dance they’ll be performing. The second the music begins, their feet have to start moving.
When asked what the biggest challenge has been for her, Carrie is quick to respond: “everything.”
It’s easy to dance in a club after she’s had a few drinks, she says, because she doesn’t care what she looks like. On the ballroom floor, however, she has to remember the steps while trying not to look ridiculous.
The Walshes agree the physical exertion required for ballroom is another challenge they didn’t expect.
“It’s a lot of work,” Carrie says. “And it is a workout. After the first few classes that we did, we were sore everywhere. Our arms were sore, our shoulder were sore.”
“Even just holding up your arm in the frame,” Peter adds. “You wouldn’t think just doing this (he demonstrates a hold) is giving you a workout, but it is actually using your upper body muscles.”
The two say they also have trouble staying focused during lessons — especially when there are so many things to be aware of.
“If I’m thinking about my feet, I’m giving Carrie spaghetti arms,” Peter says. “Women are so good at multitasking, and men are not, and I’m particularly bad at it, so I focus on my feet or on my frame or on the next thing.
Carrie’s focus issues stems more from her inability to forget about all the other things she has to do when she leaves the studio. She says when she’s practicing with Alexander, he often makes a funny face to make her laugh and snap her back into reality because he can tell that she’s not totally present.
Alexander and Peter agree that when ballroom dancers are finally able to stay focused on the dance and clear their head of anything else, the reward is a nice escape from the outside world.
Although they always leave exhausted, there’s a reason why the Walshes continue their 90-minute lessons two or three times a week — and then practice in their living room at home.
“We wanted to do something together that we’ve never done before, and Carrie’s a huge fan of ‘Dancing With The Stars,’ so we thought let’s try ballroom dancing — if we can find someone who can teach us, that is,” Peter says of their decision to start. “Joshua was the brave fool who stepped up to that challenge.”
The couple agrees that Alexander’s fun-loving teaching style is what’s made this experience truly enjoyable.
“We’ve made a super friend in Josh, and we really, really look forward to coming and hanging out with him,” Carrie adds. “We’re trying to do things that are completely not natural for us. But he makes us comfortable — he makes us laugh, we make him laugh.”
But ballroom lessons are more than a fun experience that has led them to a new friend.
The Walshes start and end every ballroom lesson with a kiss. The way they look at each other while they dance shows they share a genuine, loving connection that is expressed on the ballroom floor.
“This is actually time that we spend together, just the two of us, and I just love that,” Peter says.
