Changing Lives through Dancing by David Woodbury
Arthur Murray Santa Monica
When I began in 1975 as a student, it was the beginning of a magical life journey for me. I was very young and inexperienced, but I had talent, passion, and I was hungry to learn and grow.
At 20 years old, I had a beautiful 29 year old woman come in for lessons. I was shocked to find that she was blind! She had been sited and lost her vision through an illness. She was going to Military Ball, and she wanted to know a few dances.
As we began to dance, she asked me to help her look as if she was sited. She still remembered what seeing was like. I helped her adjust her head and she even asked me to help her with the muscles in her eyes to look at those speaking to her.
As we continued with more dancing lessons, she asked me about makeup and how to fix her eyes and lips and hair. She wanted all that dance lessons could give her.
As we talked about following Foxtrot, Swing, Rumba, Waltz and more, I explained how she was to hold the leader with whom she was dancing. Then, one day she brought in a Braille book. She said that my description of following was just like reading her book. You had to have a great connection in your hands and fingers. She exhorted me to not press down on the Braille because it would ruin the “print”. For generations, I have used her Braille lesson with me to teach followers how to dance.
Teaching and dancing with her was a blessing that has stayed with me for my entire life.
Then, I began to teach a deaf student and her husband. She was married to a hearing husband and had hearing twin girls. Get this, she taught at a hearing High School! Story: One day she was at the chalk board and turned around and said, “Stop That!” The students asked her how she knew they were misbehaving and she said, “I could FEEL you!” Just brilliant.
As time went on, she began to dance only with me, her husband taking her own lessons. I began learning sign language. As time went on, she said to me (Roz read lips perfectly just looking in your eyes and she had a clear voice) “You just said a cuss word!” She was bilingual, speaking in sign and English. She began to fuss at me and corrected my signing. Then she said this: “Arm and Hand Styling are the Language of Dance”. I stopped dead in my shoes and said, would you repeat that, and she did. That phrase changed my entire career. I have taught hundreds of dancers teaching that Arm Styling is the Language of Dance! She taught me that every moment of the hands and arms said something in sign language. Amazing!
As time went on, Roz and I became very close. She was a Rabbi at a deaf temple. This was very controversial because Hebrew was to never be translated. I was a new excited Catholic convert and we share a great deal about our faiths and beliefs.
Roz asked me if I would perform a full dance show with her for a deaf crowd. I immediately said yes. We had show costumes and music and we were the headliners. She warned me to bring good ear plugs because the music would be played VERY loud.
As we walked onto the floor, the 200+ audience began to cheer and clap for us. Then, as we danced, they clapped with the music as they felt it. I was so overwhelmed that I cried through most of the show, still keeping it together enough to dance. The show was an unforgettable experience in my life. Then, we did the show again a year later and I was truly prepared, and we gave them the show of a lifetime.
Roz was a cancer survivor when I first met her. Then years later, the cancer returned. Through regularly “talking” through texts as her illness progressed, we became confidants. I have not had a confidant since. We shared on the phone through the old relay system, then through text as time went on.
Then as the cancer took over her body, on a Friday, her husband held her hands up to her keyboard and we typed our final goodbyes. She passed away that night.
The next day I was a pallbearer at her funeral at Mt. Sinai in Los Angeles, the only non-Jewish pallbearer. It was an honor. At her funeral, hundreds of deaf people came. Hundreds of her students and many Arthur Murray Dancers.
Roz changed my whole life and I was so blessed to know her, be her friend, and have her guide me and inspire me.
Many more stories abound in my heart, these are just two very precious stories of many that I hope to share in the future.
Thanks for reading. Keep on Dancing. Don’t give up. It will get better.
Love to you all,
David Woodbury – Co-Franchisee of Arthur Murray Santa Monica, CA