Couples dance forms are definitely a way to improve communication as they require both the lead and the follow to not only communicate clearly in a verbal manner, but also physically. As your skills progress you learn to read each other's body language far better because so much of couple's dancing is really physically verbal.

Another hint for the ladies: If your guy is already going way out of his comfort zone by taking a dance class with you he may actually do BETTER if he is receiving instruction only from the instructor and is partnered with someone other than you during the learning phase. Seems a little loony? Let me explain.

The first part, recieving instruction from the instructor, may seem a little self-evident, but sometimes some of us have the need to do some instruction of our own when we see our partner is having trouble learning something. If we are already familiar with the movement we may also have the desire to teach our partner in a way that may not be the same as the lesson being given by the instructor, and that can cause a lot of confusion for an already confused partner. So, unless your partner is asking you specifically for some help let him get his instruction from the instructor.

Now, partnering with someone else can help in a lot of ways. A lot of guys are ego driven. When we are confronted with doing something that we aren't total pros at (even if its in our head) we can become shrinking violets or petulant brats. Part of that is that we don't want to look like we don't know what we are doing...ever, but for a lot of guys it affects us even more if we don't look like kings of whatever it is in front of our partner, the woman that our still adolescent minds conceive of as being dependent on our hunting skills, argh-argh-arrgh! Some (or alot) of that pressure can be dispelled by partnering us with other women in the class that are definitely as new at this as we are. I'm not going on record saying that its 100% fool proof going this route, and I understand that you ladies appreciate the process of learning together more than the actual results, but if things work well according to this plan then when its time to "free dance" in the class and you and your man partner up again you may see a far more confident guy who is REALLY looking forward to showing you how well he did and how much he learned.