Dancing And Training Wheels

It occurred to me, after another brief exposure, that there is a stage in learning to dance that vaguely correlates to taking the training wheels off on a bike. I can learn and apply the steps, which results in something approximating dance, but is ultimately a rather dull thing to do, especially for the length of a whole song.
And, since dance floors tend to have a considerable concentration of people on them, my incentives as they are now encourage me to go find a quiet corner instead.

My incentives to stay and dance go up considerably if I can make it interesting. I have seen it being interesting, so I know it can be done.

One of the ladies at work has danced at a professional or near professional level in the past. She told me she never liked learning the steps, or choreography- she just wanted her partner to lead. This makes sense, but where? Her partner would at least have what he wanted to do laid out in his head. I don't. I know this isn't an insurmountable issue; little kids who take their training wheels off their bikes just go, they don't have any particular destination in mind.

If you have the impression at this point that I think too much, you would be correct.
I have however, noticed that trying to turn my brain off is nowhere near as effective as feeding it good information, and in this particular case I am hoping somebody knows what I am missing here and has the sort of language with which to express it that would actually lead to me understanding. People who dance easily are either blissfully unaware or are trying to transmit this info to me in their particular foreign language.