I was introduced to my teacher, Robert Pike. He wasn't what I expected. Sixty maybe, with a kind of Melvyn Douglas face, he led me into a private studio. I followed, suddenly appalled at what I'd done. Chatting pleasantly, he cued up a tape, took me firmly in his arms and. moved me out across the floor.

Just a word about firmly. You can tell a lot from the way a man swings an ax, snaps the ball or leans into a canter. This guy was the real thing. I don't know what he saw in the wraparound mirrors, but I saw a heroine from the silents being swept downstream, heading for the falls.

He had me dancing in five minutes, really dancing in ten. Waltz, swing, rumba. Half these dances I didn't even know--except I was doing them. “You've danced before,” Mr. Pike remarked. Here comes the pitch, I thought. But he was right: I had. I told him about lessons, once upon a time in Hollywood, at Arthur Murray. "Was that the studio on Wilshire?" Mr. Pike asked. It was. It turns out to be one of the first places he taught. Coincidence is a marvelous thing and got us talking. He told me (side, together, close) about himself, Growing up in Atlanta, the Marines (quick, quick, slow), performing with Les Brown, Hollywood in the Forties. I couldn't tell by this time if I was dancing to the story or the music. This guy was ballroom dancing.

I signed up for ten lessons, which included optional Friday night practice sessions with the staff and other students. I wasn't so sure about those. Private lunch-hour assignations were one thing public admission another. But after three lessons I was so dance crazed I was ready to try anything. I like to think of myself as a grown-up lady. I've been in boardrooms and labor rooms, stopped arterial bleeding, made a citizen's arrest, given speeches, but never with the surge of anxiety I experienced walking into that practice session.

There I am, alone in my party dress. Suddenly big music fills the air. Instantly, Mr. Pike is at my side. From that moment, I am never not dancing with him or someone else. I meet a deli owner from Queens, a scientist from Columbia, an Estee Lauder exec. Doing this dancing in public for the first time with strangers is a little like trying out your French on a Frenchman.

"Nice samba," says a partner at my third practice session.

"Like your waltz," says another. "Very light."

"It's true," says a teacher who coaches competitors, "you can go as far as you want."

Go where? What's he talking about? Competition. They think I am dancing very well, they think I should consider competing. I’m flattered, of course.

There is a newcomers' contest scheduled a month hence. I should think about it. It's excellent preparation for the Eastern Regional’s. I'm dumbstruck.

Reprint from a Fred Astaire Dance Studio student by the name of Julia Whedon