The Patter Of Tiny Feet (And Bigger Feet Too)

I was lying in bed, ready to get up the other morning, listening to the patter of tiny feet. I couldn't help but smile. Luca, our 14 month old son is a true joy. When he smiles he really does brighten up the room. Weird that I never wanted children at all until I met Trisha (in fact I definitely wanted NOT to have any children) but now we've got our little Luciano it's difficult to imagine life without him. Sure there are sacrifices; I don't get as much dancing in as I used to. I've not been to any weekenders or holidays this year, nor am I likely to except when teaching, and I've not ridden my bike (Yamaha TDM850) since last September. But you know what? When Luca smiles, absolutely none of this matters. He loves being swung between my legs and up over my head, and he loves it when I tickle his tummy with my nose or lie him on top of my head and ask Trisha "where's Luca gone?" His laugh is like a giggling brook that sometimes squeals just with the delight of being there. He's brilliant. His Mum's brilliant too, just for the record. Four years on I still sometimes look at her and wonder what she sees in me? Whatever it is, I'm glad of it, that's for sure.
Had a BIG smile at our Wednesday class this week too. We exercise an "invitation only" policy on our intermediate classes, not because we're elitist but because we're concerned that we want to be able to teach consistently at a high standard and allowing dancers into the class that aren't of a standard to cope is frustrating both for us as teachers and for the other dancers in the class. We do endeavour to be as objective as possible when assessing dancers for our classes and it's always a joy when someone makes the grade for the first time, more so if they've been trying hard and pushing themselves to reach the standard required. I've been working with one such lady for a couple of weeks - I've always enjoyed dancing with her but she had a lot of barely controlled energy that was getting in her way and we worked on this together. Then this week, I took some time out to do some more work with her and suddenly, bam! It's like she's a different dancer! Everything we've spoken about has been put into practice and she's now got lovely, precise control matched to a lovely understated style. Her turns (both travelling turns and double spins) have suddenly become so much easier to lead and she's round and done beautifully in time to be led into whatever's coming next. Like I said - I've always enjoyed dancing with her but now she's a real treasure. When Trisha and I started teaching together a few years ago, we set our personal goal to "teach people to dance so that we would love dancing with them" (we're pretty self-serving, really).
Sylvia (for that is the name of the lady concerned) is one lady in whom our mission is fulfilled. I hope she's there tonight...