I remember when my folk dance class attendance, which once was about 20, slowly diminished until we were down to four.  I started losing money with the rental of our dance space.

I thought about ending the class, giving up the group.  Then a strange thing happened:   I got mad.   Then a  small rose voice within me saying  “Never!  I will never give up this class!  Even if no one shows up and I’m teaching dancing all alone and dancing all alone, I won’t give it up.   I’ll just spend the time choreographing new dances, and enjoy dancing the ones I know until someone shows up.  If no one shows up, I’ll keep dancing alone.  But I will never, never will I give up this beautiful class with the beautiful folk dancing that cures and elevates me and others.”

These thoughts gave me peace of mind.  I continued the class.  I also starting promoting our classes in Meetup.com,  sent in press releases to local newspapers, put announcements on Facebook, and, most important, started telephoning our former dancers to both say hello, and see if they wanted to return to our class.

The results: Some evenings we continued having three or four dances showing up.  One evening no one showed up.  Another evening we had only  two.

This “quiet period” lasted about two months.  I kept up the promotions. But slowly, strangely, miraculously, one day a new person showed up.  Another came a few weeks later.  During the next few weeks and months a few former dancers returned. The group continued to grow.  After a year we had 15-20 dancers!

Now the class is bouncing along with 20 or so, depending on the night.

So I learned that love, in this case, of folk dancing. often breeds courage,  determination, and persistence.  And with these four Beauties in place, almost anything will succeed.