Trust and Dancing

Recently, I admitted to someone that that I really wanted to learn how to dance.

While my well honed honky ability to get "jiggy with it" is infamous - I meant in the sense of classical ballroom dancing, swing dancing, salsa dancing, etc.

The truth is, I really want to be able to dance with someone else.  Not really any someone else, but to be able to dance with THE someone else (should I one day not be waiting for Godot).  But finding the right dance partner, this is a tricky proposition in and of itself.  It has led me to some thoughts on trust, some ideas that I think are well provoked.

When dancing, you need someone whom you can trust.  But trust has oh so many complex and interesting facets within its general milieu.  Is not the first part of trust, being able to say, "Ok, I know this person well enough that they will not deliberately stomp on my toes".

Relationships need to be able to say, "Ok, this person won't maliciously hurt me".

But that can't be where it stops.  Just because I don't mean to step on somebody's toes doesn't mean my two left feet, poor memory, lack of timing, and general short sighted stupidity won't lead me to tap dance impression on my poor partners tootsies.

How true is this?  So many of the grievous hurts come unintentionally by those we've let into our space, precisely because we knew them to be basically trustworthy.  For in the realm of human hurts, let us not ascribe to malice what can be more easily explained by stupidity.  Over and over again we forgive trying to keep in mind the intention of the person who, if unskilled, continues to step on us like we're asking for it.

We need not only have the right intention, but the ability, timing, and consideration not to step on the other's toes.

So even though we may know many who would WISH not to hurt our trust, how many are capable of not stepping on areas of our lives far more sensitive than feet?  In dancing, one begins with the basic steps, but as the complexity, intricacy, difficulty and intimacy escalates, soon the one being led has to trust their leading man not only to preserve their little piggies, but trust them not to drop them on their head.

While most of us would hope to say that we would NEVER drop someone on their head, (I can't say I've ever wished to give a girl a pile-driver) I must also think that the consequences of accidentally dropping someone on their head might leave little discernible difference.  In order to perform moves that require REAL vulnerability, we can't just trust the intention of the one holding us, but also their strength, steadfastness, and focus.

And so we are left in pursing various levels of trust.  Not only must we trust the person not to MEAN to hurt us, but to be able to carry us in dangerous positions without dropping us.  That doesn't require just being able to trust in someone's goodwill.  To keep us from falling as we spin and fall and trust in the other is a test of strength, focus, and character.  This is why those training together tend to increase the levels of risk progressively, allowing trust to grow and strength tested before a power-lift takes an unexpected turn into a power-bomb.

It seems that both trust and skill, in dancing and in life, might require the prudence of going one step at a time.  After all, life teaches us that it's not enough to know what you don't want to do, you also need to know what you're doing.