There was a little back and forth this week about there being two Tango classes on Wednesday night.

My response was that is no problem. There is no conflict. We are all one family.

Ideally it would be better to have the classes on different nights. Sure, if you are trying to get everybody together for a dance to pay for the rental of a hall, you do not want to dilute your crowd, but for small classes in private homes, the more dancers getting together, the better.

Say there about 300,000 people in Alachua County and nearby in other counties. By my count, in our area, there are say around 300 people that go social dancing regularly, say twice a month or more. Maybe 1 person in 1,000 dances regularly. That is poor market penetration.

As dance organizers, we are not in competition with each other. Our market is not close to saturated.

We are the stewards of social dancing in our community. Social dancing is a great product and the best way I know of socializing. We are evangelists on the same team.

When I was in high school, my Dad prodded me into dancing when he mocked me when I said I did not like to dance. He said, "You do not know how to dance. You cannot say you do not like it. That is like saying you do not like playing the piano. You have no idea what it is like to play the piano and you have no idea what it is like to dance."

As a freshman in college, my best friend Scott Annan's robot, splits, cool moves and heart thumping music inspired me, and I only had to trade a few kisses to get some awesome girl dancer to teach me my first steps in dancing with a partner.

Almost a decade later, during a Gainesville interlude, a female friend twice took me to my first organized dancing at UF Hillel for Israeli Folk Dancing, though we were clueless. Nine months later in Chicago, I went to a Jewish singles party, which featured Israeli Folk Dancing. The dance teachers left their flyer. The next Thursday I went to Phil Moss' dance session and the rest is history.

It takes a village and many years to recruit and train a new dancer.

Think of it as planting trees. The more people providing entry to the dance community, the more our community will grow and everyone will benefit. We cannot plant enough trees.