How to Get Your Guy to Dance

"I won't dance, don't ask me
I won't dance, don't ask me
I won't dance, Madame, with you.....
My heart won't let my feet do things that they should do"

~ I Won't Dance as sung by Frank Sinatra~

Let me be the first guy to admit it:

MOST MEN + ATTEMPT AT DANCING = DISASTER

I won't make a sweeping comment (my A-Levels English tutor would periodically scold us on making "sweeping statements", day in, day out for the rest of our A-Levels education); but MOST guys have proven at least once or twice in their lives (must've been in an attempt to impress a woman, or been totally wasted when he did it) that they have two left feet and NO sense of rhytm. Luckily over the years I've gotten to know a few guys in KL who KNOW how to move and delight the lay-dees on the dance floor (Timoer & Ariff Riza...ur my Dance Idols!) ;-p

Speaking for myself... I dance WORSE than Will Smith's tubby client from that rom-com movie "Hitch (2005)". If you've ever seen the movie: Napoleon Dynamite (2004) ~ where the lead character dances like a dork at the end, or seen BBC's popular comedy The Office (2003) ~ in which Ricky Gervais' big boss character, David Brent does a manic dance mix of MC Hammer + Flashdance; you'd get an inkling of how terrible I move on the dance floor.

So if you're dreaming of seeing me Salsa dancing, or busting out a move as well as Usher...you'd be greatly dissapointed-lah. Dancing's just not my thing, u know. However, get me "sky high" enough and amuse yourself over the manic antics of my attempts at bopping to the beat. (Sad to say some of me mates have actual photographic evidence of me jumping like a trance'd up maniac in between 5 women to the beat of Pussycat Dolls' *Beep*. Now THAT was a good night indeed, non guys?) ;-p

At the end of the day, it all boils down to showing confidence through body language, having enough balls to go through with it, and also a sense of rhytm and grace to follow the beat of the music. After all, how hard is it to actually dance, right guys?? ;-)
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Originally published on MSN.Match.com and written by Bob Strauss.

It’s a stark fact of the dating world that the number of guys who know how to dance is inversely proportional to the number of gals who want to be twirled across a parquet floor—and that even among the guys who know how to dance, the number who actually want to dance (rather than, say, sit at the bar and watch the Mets game) is, John Travolta excepted, a relatively teensy fraction.

Why should this be so? Speaking on behalf of my fellow men, I’d say dancing in public is the most exposed thing a guy can do, short of hauling a mattress out to the nearest four-way intersection and engaging in you-know-what. But there are some subtle ways you can ease your guy out of his favorite armchair and onto a crowded dance floor. To wit:

Cater to his musical tastes.
“My husband is picky about the music he’ll dance to,” says Py Kim Conant, author of Sex Secrets of an American Geisha. “It has to be 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s rock-and-roll. I can dance to anything, so instead of waiting for his kind of music, I go out on the dance floor and dance alone or with a group of people. When he sees how much I enjoy dancing without him, he’s sure to make his move when they do start playing the Rolling Stones or the Bee Gees.”

Buy him a video game.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, your guy can now learn to dance without having to leave his 200-square-foot basement apartment. For example, the game Dance Dance Revolution (for PlayStation 2, Xbox and computer) comes with a dance pad that connects to his PC or game console and an assortment of bouncy pop and techno tunes. The person playing the game has to follow the footsteps to dance proficiency. If your boyfriend is the type who’d rather stay home and play Grand Theft Auto than squire you to the local club, this can be a good way to kill two virtual birds with one stone.

Go back to school.
Probably for the same reason they refuse to stop and ask for directions, many men are reluctant to admit that they simply don’t know how to shake their booty. If you suspect this is the case, surprise your beau with an enrollment for two in a swing-dancing (or samba, or tango) class. Even if you were Miss Salsa 2002, pretending to pick up all the right moves at the same time that he does is a great way to soothe his prickly ego and coax him out to the local club.

Rent a movie.
Kathryn Alice, a relationship coach, raves about the Will Smith movie Hitch as a get-up-and-get-dancing tool. “In one scene, Hitch, a dating coach, demonstrates the basic dance a guy can do so as not to look stupid. It's a kind of side-to-side rocking, with hands on your hips and elbows bent. It's a perfect illustration of how to get away with dancing when you don’t really know how, and the movie also has a great message—that sometimes looking like a dork on the dance floor can be the best thing for your love life.”

Be careful what you wish for.
So your guy is schooled, groomed, and raring to go. Look out! He may be too eager to show off his not yet fully refined moves. “Once my boyfriend and I were at a New Year's dance, and there was this fantastic swing-dance couple out on the floor,” says Lisa from New York. “The crowd parted to watch their skill. My boyfriend decided to get a little crowd of his own going and did this odd dance, a cross between break dancing, tap dancing and an Irish jig. I could have sunk into the floor.”

New York-based writer Bob Strauss is the author of The Big Book of What, How and Why.