I saw the dancing teacher as a foil for the dancing Ann Margret. Ann Margret was, as Peggy pointed out, "phony". The teacher, on the other hand, was real: young, fresh, kind, working with children, crowned with flowers, almost a Flora image. This may have been striking Don.

So he touches the real grass. And remember what he said to Betty in ep. 1 as he lulled her to sleep? "Running your hands through the cool sand under your deck chair"... so here he runs his hands through the cool grass under his chair.

This is part of Don's complexity. He is a success in an industry that intends to manipulate and bamboozle, but we sense that there is also in him a deep desire to get to what's Real and Fundamental in things. It's when this desire pushes through and melds with his creativity that he comes up with his most brilliant ad campaign ideas.

A friend of mine also pointed out that the teacher looks much more like a hippy chick than anyone we've seen so far, and so reminds us of a different kind of woman on the horizon. This is a nice bit of foreshadowing. Of what? Oh, it could foreshadow so many things! Good call, Marianne.

it was absolutely sexual... Don looks at women that he hasn't had sex with before as food.

Don is looking to escape to freedom. If you see sex in that gesture, you don't know Don as well as you think you do.

PS: These posts were the best from the thread?

There is a running theme this season.

The very first shot this season was Don's bare feet in the kitchen.

Later that episode, we see Don rushing out from the hotel fire in his bare feet.

In the season's second episode, we are once again focused on a character's bare feet.

It symbolizes childlike exposure to uncontrollable elements, without the clothed vestiges of adulthood.

Yes, that last scene was indeed sexual.

I think that the teacher evoked a memory of his mother-touching the grass was a way of physically bringing himself back to the memory. I think Don is one of those lost little boys in a man's body

I definately saw some foot action!

I think all of the above posts have validity. Touching the grass is sensual (as Don looks at the teacher who is "free" in her dance as he longs to be free). It also is of the senses, i.e. bringing him back to his own lost childhood which was never fully realized. He is a lost child and part of why he cheats, I feel, is because he's trying to capture that feeling of "real". His job deals in fantasy; his marriage is a sham; his life itself isn't real - he can't even use is real name. So the longing for childhood (his only true reality) is symbolized by the sensuality of touch. Touching the grass, touching other women is his way of touching his true self.

Remember the Madison Square Garden meeting? Don says:" Let's agree that change is neither good nor bad, it simply is. We can greet it with terror or joy. A tantrum that says 'I want things the way they were.' or with a dance that says "look. something new.'"
Now you know what the maypole dance is about. The scenes before and after the dance are of Peggy. Now you know what the something new is about.
Don's impulse to ground himself by touching the grass during the dance let's us viewers know he is present, not aloof behind his sunglasses and cigarette as he pretends to be.
Puzzledonkey's comments juxtaposing Ann Margaret to the teacher/spring maiden character are really great. And play into Don's acceptance of Peggy's new view on how to reach women. Peggy says: " I have no problem with fantasy, but it should be a woman's."
Last thought: Will Don's awakening to something new be intellectual, embracing Peggy's ground breaking copywriting insights? Or literal, seducing or pursuing Peggy herself?
In true Don Draper style, I hope both.

He is sitting in a "grey flannel suit" in an uncomfortable chair while watching a young, beautiful girl dance barefoot. He puts his plastic Pepsi? cup down when he brushes his fingers across the grass. It seems he puts away work, his present reality, to join the girl in the pure freedom of dancing and the innocence he might have enjoyed at some point as a child. Does he want to dance with her or just dance freely by himself and unbutton his emotions? There were two other references to dance in that episode, but I forgot what they were. It seemed that each mention related to freedom in some way.

No one thought that he was thinking about touching the teacher? Two fingers trailing very suggestively through the grass, er...thatch? He didn't use his whole hand--just those fingers. Look again and remember what a woman would have felt like during those pre-bikini wax days. I thought it was one of the most sexual scenes of the whole series.

Don, I think, was touching the grass because Matt Weiner is going to have him be the force behind LBJ's "Daisy" ad, the most famous political TV ad ever made. The timing of the strokes matched Daisy almost perfectly, and this show will need to end this season. It has no legs unless you want to lose everything it has going for it. Also, it was only renewed this year. Sorry if this is a spoiler. Delete this post and I will know I am right.

BTW, I think Don will kill himself while it airs... it only aired once and you only jump off a building once.

10-9-8-7-6...

maybe the grass touching was just a subtle segway to the title of episode 3... "Kentucky" - - - - bluegrass. sometimes a kiss is just a kiss. maybe.

It was obvious to me, but maybe I'm wrong.

Remember in the first show of this season, Don is trying to relax Betty by creating a fantasy scene for her. He tells her she is on a beach, to put her hand in the cool sand under her chair.

Don was mesmerized by the beautiful dancing teacher and dissolving into his fantasy world where there is cool sand under his chair.

Exactly Myriad. He was "going to another place" which he had apparently had his own experience with. He described something similar to relax his wife. Perhaps he was wishing himself with that young teacher.

Oh gosh, bare feet turn men on.

He was trying to feel more grounded. Trying to feel the freedom from his inner turmoil, and through watching the teacher, caught a glimpse of the innocence he's never had. Don, being Don, also felt some sexual attraction to the teacher, thus trying to connect with her through the same sensations, eg, the grass. In the last episode, he's beginning to realize what is going to get him to a place he wants to be, possibly through his family life, he may even come to the conclusion that he will not find freedom through exterior means, but will have to turn inward to solve his conflict. I mean outside and inside his family circle. He will realize that what he needs to to resolve his turmoil is to turn to Betty and the kids, not outside his family through affairs.

Can't it just be that he was touching the grass?

You mean "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"...but that would take all the fun out of analyzing the episodes! That was a funny line, though.

Remember when he put his hand up Bobbie Barrett's skirt? His fingers skimming the grass, sexual in the same way.

I think Don was taken by surprise at how genuine the maypole dance was. It was free and natural, and I think it reminded him of being in California and made him miss it. In California, Don didn't have to hide anything, which was a huge weight off his shoulders, if only temporarily.

I think his love for California's more nature oriented and emotionally freer culture is also apparent when he mentions the state in his Penn Station pitch, saying that the people there are "happy and full of hope," versus New York, which is "in decay." He wanted to feel that feeling of happieness and hope again, and California's outdoor focused culture inspired him to touch the grass to feel that connection.

I think that Don was touching the grass as his way to be connected to the teacher. In his old habits, Don would have attempted to sleep with her in some way to satisfy his urge, but because there is a literal and metaphoric space and distance between them, he is touching the grass which is touching her bare feet, almost removing that distance. It brings to thought the common adage, "look but don't touch".

Someone mentioned barefeet as a recurring theme so far this season. How about "grass" as a recurring theme?

Definitely lots of hints of changes to come. I heard MM was renewed for Season 4. Yay!!!

I agree with barber girl, bare feet are a recurring theme thus far in season 3. I think he longs for feeling anything "real". Everything about him is a mirage, a false image, which forces him to be an outsider who must constantly maintain his identity. His feeling of the grass allows him to secretly return to something familiar.

How about Dick Whitman - Walt Whitman - "leaves of grass"?

"I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass."