Elizabeth Hocker counted off the steps Monday night, instructing couples how to dance the fox trot and the merengue.

With varying degrees of success, the couples started to get the hang of it, locking in with the rhythm of the merengue after Hocker compared the basic foot movements of the dance to “John Wayne walking up the stairs.”

Hocker’s ballroom dance class is one of several adult enrichment classes offered this fall through Bowling Green-Warren County Community Education.

An instructor at Dance Images studio, Hocker said she became involved with Community Education’s adult enrichment program shortly after the television show “Dancing with the Stars” first became popular.

Hocker was soon in contact with Anne Grubbs, enrichment and volunteer coordinator for Community Education, about offering a class on ballroom dancing.

“The most important thing is to make sure people are comfortable and they have a good time,” Hocker said.

Dozens of enrichment classes have been offered through the fall program, which started last month.

Classes typically meet once a week for a few weeks, and the offerings are in many categories, including computers, arts, crafts, language, home, garden and cooking, personal growth and recreation and health.

“With a lot of our classes, you try it and if you like it you can pursue other lessons that are more intense,” Grubbs said.

Many of the classes offered have already taken place, but some have yet to begin. People are recommended to register at least a week before the first session.

Instructors are paid through the fees collected for the classes.

The ballroom dance class met for the first of three sessions Monday in the Henry F. Moss Middle School cafeteria. Future classes will have instruction on the waltz and other dances.

One couple at Monday’s class, Tommy Han and Jennifer Blankenship of Bowling Green, said they registered for the class partly for recreation and partly to polish their moves for some upcoming weddings they’ve been invited to attend.

“It gives us something fun to do on a boring Monday night,” Blankenship said.

In the library at Moss Middle School, Elaine Painter, a Bowling Green veterinarian and alpaca farmer, led a class Monday teaching people how to spin yarn from alpaca hair.

Painter, who moved to Bowling Green two years ago, saw the enrichment classes that Community Education offered and decided to join the fall program as an instructor.

Her class Monday taught the basics of spinning hair into yarn, a process that, while enjoyable, can involve a good deal of trial and error.

“I’m no expert, but an expert would have lost patience,” Painter said.

 

Story, Justin (2011, October). Couples get on dance floor during class. Bowling Green Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.bgdailynews.com/news/couples-get-on-dance-floor-during-class/article_a8a378f2-2d64-56f0-849a-0e05ae68b510.html