Today’s the big day for the “Danc­ing for a VARI Good Cause” ben­e­fit for the Van Andel Insti­tute, and our celebri­ties are busy get­ting ready to daz­zle guests for “fun and non-profit.” If you can’t be there, don’t for­get to go vote online! In the mean time, here’s a fun blog­ger report from WZZM’s Val Lego and a link to a video that has a snip­pet of her dance adven­ture. You go girl!

THERE’S NO SMILING IN TANGO !

By Val Lego

I have to say, I never quite grasped what I was get­ting myself into when Carol Van Andel asked me to par­tic­i­pate in Danc­ing for a VARI Good Cause last Octo­ber. 72 hours of tango lessons later, I’ve learned a few things.

If it feels awk­ward, you are most likely doing it right. The only rea­son why your toes get stepped on is because they weren’t sup­posed to be there in the first place. Count­ing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And after decades of try­ing to lead the way, I’ve finally learned to fol­low, my dad thanks you Mr. Silva!

There have been moments when I begged and pleaded to change the rou­tine because I never thought I would be able to mas­ter a par­tic­u­lar move, but Mr. Silva never gave in or gave up. There were moments when after a 2 hour tango les­son I didn’t think I was going to be able to move again, but I never had so much fun !

Here are a few of the few of the humor­ous out­takes I remember:

“The bus is leav­ing Mr. Silva with out or with­out you!”
“You messed up Mr. Silva?? How could YOU be the one to mess up when I just learned this step 10 min­utes ago?”
“There’s no jump­ing OR smil­ing in tango!”
“Again !” ( and again and again and…..)
I had a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence, and I want to thank both Carol Van Andel and the Arthur Mur­ray stu­dio for an oppor­tu­nity I’m sure I will remem­ber for a life­time!   And while you may not see it on my face ~ I’ll be smil­ing on the inside when I dance the Tango !

To see a clip, visit http://www.wzzm13.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=163349