Just dancing ...

Just Dancing . . .

Some thoughts about how to keep your feet moving while out there on the dance floor of life.

Life is strange the way it dances us around and then lets us realize that "life is strange." I have been wrangling around this blog for months, getting sidetracked by business, then life, then more business and finally by the summer's hot sun and the lure of dancing as I tried to set it up so I could write about dancing and invite others into the conversation. And then today, well, actually tonight, I finally couldn't stand it anymore and so I made myself take the time to go to Haloscan and re-read all the instructions. It probably helps that they have made many improvements to their system while I've been dancing around. But now, as you'll see, we're up and running. Whoopee!

So here I sit contemplating going to another Skippy Blair night www.skippyblair.blogspot.com and wondering if the whole damn thing is worth it. Worth the anguish of not being credited for what I've learned, for what I think, for what I'd like to share. I love to take part in what happening but twenty years of teaching dance should count for something in the ongoing creation of a body of dance knowledge. What am I trying to prove I have to ask myself? But there is really only one answer to that: myself.

Just Dancing , too. . . that's what I'm thinking as I look into the worried eyes of my partner. She's apologizing and I'm thinking "it's okay, it's just dancing" when my brain finally registers what she's saying. "I can't seem to hear the music, I know this is a West Coast Swing but I can't hear the beat in the music." Oh my god, my mind goes, as I realize that she's talking about a phenomenon that I've had happen to my own dancing ears from time to time. It's like you can't, I can't, tell what the song actually is. I can hear the sound but it's really like the wall of sound that reverberates off of the cliffs as I walk the beach when the surf is really pounding. As a matter of fact I think that's what may be the cause here. Some how the music from the sound system/band/dj is reverbrating off of my inner ear in such a way as to make me feel like I'm going deaf. One time I remember telling my partner, listen, for some reason I'm not hearing the beat so if you don't mind I'm just going to follow you. The funniest part of it was that when we walked off the floor a dance teacher friend of ours raced up to tell us that in her opinion we'd just demonstrated what good dancing was all about. We both just cracked up.