This March a dance course was organixed as a part of our 'well-being at work' activities. I decided to take advantage of the opportunity as I had for quite some time planned go to a dance course but hadn't been able to summon up the courage.

Basically, the dances I had been taught earlier were the 'academic promotion dances,' such as quadrille, polonaise, cicapo, and waltz, in addition to the little we had had at school: Kiikuri kaakuri (a folk dance), jenkka, mazurka, humppa, tango, waltz, and inevitably, cicapo.

On the course we had foksi ('foxtrot,' in reality a sort of generic dance), fusku ('fake jive,' which can't be danced to jive music), cha-cha-cha, waltz, Finnish tango, and finally humppa. We were taught by Pia and Heikki Kahila - which of course means nothing outside Finland - very good teachers, actually. They taught us the basic steps and a simple variation for all of them; with foksi both a quarter turn and a right turn in addition to the basic slow-slow-quick-quick.

My ambition was to progress from a lousy dancer to just a bad one. But as expected, I only became more aware of how much there is to learn, and that there is a very long way to go if I want to enjoy dancing.

There was some talk that the group would start going to dance pavilions...