Dancing at the New York Crystal Dance Studio
As boys growing up in West Islip, our favorite sport was baseball. We walked and talked baseball and often took our heroes names while playing. I remember my mother saying, “If you want to make the double play like Pee Wee Reese, you should learn to tap dance. That’s what Pee Wee Reese and Gil Hodges did!” I inquired, “Mom, what do you mean?” And mom said, “You have to have great foot work to make the double play at second base and to receive the throws at first base. They took dancing lessons to become better fielders.”
To my amazement, I learned mom knew what a double play was and thus knew the secret of my heroes’ success. This solidified in my mind for time eternal that mothers know everything! But I never took dance lessons and never learned to dance.
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Our friends Joan, Rich, Pam and Dennis love to go to dinner and dancing. As beautiful dancers, they know the subtleties of leading and following. My wife, Joni, always wanted to dance but I was a stick in the mud and preferred to sit out. After attending enough gatherings and weddings where you sit with people you don’t know, can’t hear, and watching our friends have so much fun, Joni put her foot down and said we were taking dance lessons. And as a dutifully “trained” husband I uttered the words all husbands know, “yes, dear.” There are three things you learn when you get married and they are, “Yes dear, anything you say dear and it is for the children dear.” Once you learn all three, you’ll have a happy wife and a happy life!
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The New York Crystal Dance Studio is located in West Islip at the intersection of Higbie Lane and Udall Road. Every conceivable dance instruction is available. Joni and I enrolled in ballroom dancing. At my age I figured I wasn’t going to play shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers and what the hell, they moved to LA anyway.
New York Crystal is a wonderful studio to learn ballroom dancing especially for someone who has absolutely no clue where to begin. The owner of the studio is Rosalie and our instructor’s name is Joe. Marjorie and Phyllis instruct group and individual lessons as well. And I need all their help. One is continually amazed with their patience, teaching ability, cajoling and sense of humor. You quickly conclude they love to dance and they impart their knowledge excellently.
I think Joe must have experience as a diplomat and could be the US representative to the United Nations. I am sure it has been very difficult for him, as he has had to teach me that I have to move both my left and right feet. Once you learn a step, store it in memory, Joe might say something like, “by the way Hank, you have to lead.” Oh, oh! To prevent utter panic from setting in, you must think like a chess player. You have to decide your next step ahead of time in order to lead it correctly. Two people should dance as one.
There are many people who take lessons at Rosalie’s dance studio. The more experienced dancers assure you that they too started not knowing how to dance when they joined. That is difficult to believe when you see how gracefully they glide around the dance floor whether doing foxtrot, Viennese waltz or tango at the Friday evening dance parties. It was at one of these events, we encountered my former West Islip high school world studies and economics teacher, Mr. William Angelos.
I reintroduced myself to Mr. Angelos and then introduced him to Joni. When we were in school, some classmates called Mr. Angelos, the big A. I always called him, Uncle Bill. He remembered me as one of his erstwhile students from many years ago. My favorite classroom lesson was when he explained the “Law of Supply and Demand”. His words were, “If there is a shortage of baseballs, what happens to the cost of a ticket to see a game?” Uncle Bill knew how to make me think. On this particular Friday evening, Uncle Bill explained he had been dancing for four years and said he wished he had started sooner. He then explained to Joni about being a kid growing up and that it was more important to play baseball than to learn to dance. Joni couldn’t believe hearing the same story that I had subscribed to for so many years, reconfirmed by Mr. Angelos.
This was the culture of our time. Both teacher and student never learned to dance because it was more important to play ball. The attitude transcended generations. I know I never gave dancing a thought but I should have. The teenage girls I would have wanted to impress would have preferred to dance rather than watch a baseball game. That attitude transcended generations as well, because wives are the same. Given the choice of attending a major league baseball game or going dancing, most wives will opt for dancing.
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Everyone who takes ballroom dancing starts by learning the basic Foxtrot steps. To maintain marital bliss, one tries to avoid stepping on your partner’s toes. You try to take two steps forward, two to the side and then and two steps back. I didn’t catch on to this very quickly. About twenty minutes into our first lesson, Joe said, “Hank, there is a pattern.” A light went off in my head. These words mean there is a plan! As an engineer I have the innate ability to count to four and because there is a plan, there is hope. Joni is elated because she knows that if there is a plan, I’ll figure it out. With Joe’s tactful instruction, and Rosalie acting as marriage counselor, we came back for another lesson. After a few lessons, Joni decided to place her toes way back so I wouldn’t step on them and that we better purchase dance shoes.
New York Crystal Dance Studio offers beginner’s group lessons on Saturday. Thus, we entered Marjorie’s world. It is not exactly the Eagles’ “Hotel California” or the rigors of basic training in the Army but more like tough love administered with the aim to make you as good a dancer as you want to be. Knowing she is dealing with an elementary school child’s mentality, Marjorie may use an expression like, “Simon says watch”! You may watch all you like but then you have to do what you were observing. It wasn’t long before I was in Marjorie’s doghouse.
Marjorie also teaches the Wednesday evening intermediate group. I told one of the fellows in that group that I’ve been in Marjorie’s doghouse for a while. With a smile in his eye he said, “We all are. Once you’re in, you never get out!” When summer arrives Marge takes vacation. Phyllis takes over her classes and uses another approach that doesn’t employ a doghouse. She’ll ask you to dance and she’ll follow your lead. If you lead well, all is fine. If you don’t, Phyllis will follow you just the same and very quickly you realize, “Oops, I should have done something!” If Rosalie is teaching you to lead a step, she’ll use an ample supply of abrupt exaggeration and/or imitation to make sure she gets her point across about what you did and what you should have done.
It is fun to observe the interplay between instructors. Rosalie holds court and gives as well as she gets. Sometimes Joe will needle Marjorie a bit and get her going. He easily makes Phyllis laugh and he does it all the time. Their laughter is light and contagious. The spirit and the enjoyment is all in fun and the result is fun for all!!! So if you want to have some fun and learn to dance, try New York Crystal Dance Studio.
