This season, to avoid the issue of going to a class and having to leave because the partner who
was supposed to come didn't - issue being, I figured, partly my own fault for maybe selecting a class/style/teacher/place that did not suit my partner, who thus was reluctant to attend -
this season I let my five partners choose the classes. This way, I would be their partner rather than the opposite way and they would never miss a class. I thought.
Now I know it was a mistake. First, three of them chose the same Tuesday class and the other two chose the same Wednesday class. Only one girl reconsidered and finally picked a Thursday class. So I lost two partners, the ones whom I had to fire. I fired the shortest ones. No need to worry for them, I saw afterwards that each of them had found another leader, and the change is necessarily for the better. But they're lost for me.
Worse, the ones whom I kept, although the class was chosen by them, aren't more assiduous than they were last year.
The Wednesday one told me last week that she would be too busy with things she had to do in NYC, and this week she invited a friend in her place. "And sure I could bring her if really it's important for you to attend this class Pablo, but she's not a dancer, imagine how boring it will be
for her to sit and watch...".
As for the Tuesday one, she has her very own way to schedule things. If the start of a class is announced at 21:30 she'll assume that nothing will really begin before 22:00 and therefore showing up at 22:15 is perfectly acceptable. Then she asks to herself what she could do until 22:15, and signs up for anything she fancies, Irish tap dance, bel canto, oil painting, whatever. Yesterday when the teacher said "Hi all. Ok, let's start" my alledged partner was probably ten miles away. And instead of an A.T class I just had a round-trip ticket from my place to the dance studio and back to my place again.
