Emily Paine Carter

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"Men learn to be leaders, and the women learn to trust": our ballroom dance teachers Bonnie and Rick Schmitt stress this.

"Stress" also describes my first fumbling steps with dance- and life-partner Rod. Maybe I kept count to the music, but I lost count of how many times he scolded, "You are leading again, dear." Sigh.

So, ballroom dancing is like a ropes course for us girls? Trust; follow the guys? Yes, ma'am! Or a bootcamp shout: "Sir! Yes, sir!"

Mental health counselor Darnell Barnes laughed heartily at my question. "Oh, yes! Ballroom dancing helps our 'control issues'!" The Southwest Roanoke resident said she and her husband, Ray, had loved taking American Dance Center lessons.

The Schmitts -- celebrating their 26th wedding anniversary this week -- dance like no pesky control issue ever reared its ugly foot. Bonnie, 54, said in an e-mail that they've been teaching at Miss Mona's School of Dance in Salem for almost a year. Rick, 49, also takes adult clog dancing and adult tap classes there; an adult tap lesson with his daughter, Anita Dawn Fullmer, sparked the latter. (Given my "leading" men topic, his character's name in The Showtimers' upcoming "Of Mice and Men" sounds appropriate: "The Boss.")

Bonnie wrote that the Salem couple started taking ballroom lessons -- a Valentine's Day gift from Rick -- more than four years ago at Roanoke's Arthur Murray Dance Studio. They also studied at Christiansburg's Sapphire Ballroom and Dance Center, D&D Dance in Roanoke and USA Dance of Roanoke.

Bonnie even learns the men's steps, so she can troubleshoot.

As if learning one part weren't enough! In moments of steep-learning-curve crisis, we students separated: "girls here, boys there" -- just like long-ago ballroom classes above the late Don McGraw's downtown Salem music shop. Others recall those old dance steps; I only remember the late Ed Mattern's demand that I hold his hand up in the air, too.

Rick introduced a complicated waltz pattern, somehow delightfully named "a twinkle." But Rod, thinking of the Austrian waltz capital, joked, "Vienna, we have a problem!"

Fellow students Sam, 49, and Sherry Shields, 50, of Blue Ridge said that because retiring, they have time for these "dreamed-of" lessons. "Good exercise, too," said Sam. (Good brain exercise also, as my former aerobics teacher Laura Pole always insisted.)

Alvaro Crespo, 43, beamed through every class and declared that he, his wife Jeanne, 42, and her mom Sandra Cole, 63, -- who live together in Salem -- "had lots of fun! The women wanted to be able to dance on their cruise."

Rod had agreed to lessons, if he could first focus on achieving his karate black belt. He credits karate "katas" for helping him master new dance moves faster than me.

All of us beginners wanted to re-up. Miss Mona's offered these lessons via Salem Parks and Recreation, but the Roanoke Valley abounds with highly acclaimed programs. Now-engaged Anne Perrin and Henry Woodward even take salsa lessons in the home of their teachers, Steve and Liz Becker.

Rod and I figured that "finally, we did pretty well." Mind you, I had originally imagined a full-body-contact, ramming-speed reincarnation of Lakeside Amusement Park bumper cars. Hey, I'm starting to trust his fearless leadership: the sure-footed guide they say a dancing man should be.