There's a young lady -- I'm guessing about mid-20s -- in the Wednesday night group dance class at Four Seasons. I attend the intermediate Swing class at 6 and then stay for the Ballroom class at 7 when a lead is needed. This young lady, hereinafter to be called Sidney (because that's her name), has been coming alone for a couple of months, so I've been staying and partnering with her. Beginning waltz and foxtrot are somewhat behind me now, but I work on improving my technique and every now and then, Rebecca teaches something I don't know or just don't do very well.

So, here comes the stroking of the ego part. As I said, Sidney is young and cute. And each week when she sees I'm there to dance with her, her entire face lights up. I'm not accustomed to young ladies being excited to dance with me, so it does a lot for my ego that my presence so clearly makes her happy.

Now, I know that what she likes is the fact that I know what I'm doing. Her abilities improve so much faster when partnered with me because I make fewer mistakes than the other guys in class, I can explain when she's doing something wrong, and I can take her through more complicated patterns when she starts to get bored. She's not held back waiting for a leader who is still learning that he has feet, so she advances faster than the class average.

Let's use an example. First, a little background.

Last month, Rebecca taught waltz and foxtrot box steps. This month she's teaching waltz and foxtrot traveling steps. This example is about foxtrot. The foxtrot box step is a 4-beat step: Slow (2 beats) Quick Quick (1 each). Then repeat. So each full box is exactly 2 measures.

The foxtrot traveling steps are six beats. Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick. 1-2, 3-4, 5, 6. This is a measure and a half. Two of these is 3 measures. Then you have to mix it up to come out to an even 4 measures if you care at all about the timing of the music.

Switching step patterns is tricky. It sounds simple, but your mind gets in a pattern. You're going along doing your slow-slow-quick-quicks, and your muscles remember that. They want to keep that pattern going. But to go into a box, you suddenly have to switch to slow-quick-quick. When you're first learning, that's hard to do.

So last night, we were doing traveling steps. Sidney was getting bored as I was constraining us to what we'd learned so far. She asked me, "Are you going to mix it up on me?" I told her, "I was trying to think what you've been taught so far." "How about a box?"

So, we traveled around the room. And when we got to the corner, I switched us to a box. We boxed around a couple of times, then we started traveling again. And she did it!

It made her night, because once we did it, she understood why it's tricky. I commended her on doing it, and she said, "Well, you did it too." "Yeah, but I was thinking about it along the entire wall ahead of time to make sure I wouldn't screw it up."

So, long story, I know. But the end result is -- she was happy. She was happy she was dancing with *me*.

And that's a big ego stroke.