Sometimes we plan

I really want this new class to succeed but it isn't. I can't figure it out. But it could be that by offering it on a Saturday at mid-day I'm putting it in the wrong place. Unfortunately for me, this is the only time the studio is available and that I want to teach it. Ah well.

I think therefore I dance . . .

I think but that isn't the all of it. I dance as I think, I think as I dance. The coincidence is wonderful to me. I marvel at the wonder that my body can find the movement in the music while my mind explores the meaning of the movement. It didn't always work that way. As I was learning how to dance in the formal way, I thought too much about what I was "supposed" to do. My mind got in the way. But gradually my body took over and I began to recognize what I was doing, what I was capable of doing. I left behind the awareness of what I didn't know and the obsessive concern for what someone else thought.

I owe it to Skippy . . .

that my first eletter came out today. I tried to keep it simple. Thanks for coming, see you next week. I am still enjoying the feeling of teaching a class again. Studying the differences and similarities amongst the various steps we do to swing has been my main avocation for years. Now I'm finally ready to teach again. I could say I owe it to Skippy and it would be true. She introduced me to the idea as a way to keep the dances separate. And I am taking the idea another step forward. I show the students the differences and similarities as a tool and that keeping them separate is the way that they can use to dance the current dance floor mix of swings: East Coast, Lindy, Jitterbug, Balboa, West Coast and One-Step, successfully.

First Saturday . . .

is the name of my new dance workshop. I think I may have borrowed the idea from a teacher of Lindy up north of here. The swing workshop is free, and draws a crowd. I then form the classes that follow out of paying students. The first session drew 18 and six signed up to continue. I am offering it as seminar of swing: lindy to west coast, jitterbug to one step, with the east coast in between.

I just

want to say something about the way dancing makes a person feel. It's on my mind because of the Lindy workshop that I went to last night. I started off on the edge of things and it was clear to me that it wasn't going to be the fun that I thought it would. But then we circled up and did some warm up footwork and then chose partners to learn the routine. I recognized it immediately and so again I was ready to be bored. Only I wasn't. As soon as we began working on it, my partner began to smile. and this made me smile. And I still am as I remember it.

Planning is everything.

So we are set to begin in October. The Jitterbug Club will meet once a week to dance, and to learn anew, and answer some old, old questions about Swing dancing. The sub title of the course is "Master Your Swing".

Never Let Go , , ,

I know that time has passed since I made the claim that I was starting a Jitterbug Club. And that could make it seem as though I may have given up because the first meeting did not go so well. But actually, what happened was that my summer commitment to the fair season just interrupted the start up. So get ready to jump and jive folks 'cuz the dance world needs us.

Jitterbug

I am starting a Jitterbug Club. And the main reason is that the local dancers and dance teachers are using a one swing fits all dance step to dance to our live local dance music. It feels so wrong to be hearing up tempo blues swing music and see the dancers use West Coast to interpret it. Or even worse, to have your partner think she's dancing West Coast and there is no slot and she doing a rock step. It's flat out ugly. And the local instructors who should know better encourage this by teaching West Coast as though its a slowed down version of East Coast Swing.

Judge Judy, Judge Rheinholt, Bud Cort . . .

Oh my God, I laughed out loud as Micheal's droll description of the mock trial sequence on Arrested Development played itself out. And even as I watched, I couldn't help but think about the terrible judge's dilemma developing on Dancing With The Stars. What the hell are they going to do when Jerry Rice wins the competition because he receives the most popular votes? Each week the judges have scored him lower, and each week the voters have placed him higher. It's tough enough that both Drew Lachey and Stacey Kiebler are very equal but with Jerry in the mix the show's really liable to end up even worse than last time.

Meanwhile, I really feel that the show itself has matured well beyond expectations. The Barry Manilow version of Unchained Melody with the slow motion montage of the competitors dancing in the background made me feel as though the screen was in fact dancing with me. And the developing dialogue between the dancers and the judges is absolutely educational to any dancer wanna be. Something you rarely get in real competitions is a direct conversation with the judges. You may get their scores sans comments but never get to explain what you and your choreography were about. So Jerry with his broom sequence and George with his Zorro mask, and Stacey with her angry countenance are all quite useful to a dancer watching the show in order to learn. And I like it that the pros are starting to talk back too.

Things get worse . . .

I have begun to limit my dancing time. I think I'm hoping somehow to avoid the past. When my shoulder began to ache year around, I had to give up beach volleyball. Before that, when my knees were so sore that I couldn't land from a jump or walk up stairs, I gave up surfing and sold my car so I could continue to play basketball. Through it all, my driving need has been to keep on being athletic. So I've reached a point where it takes two days for my body to recover from a night of full out dancing. But as the saying goes, if I ain't dancing, I'm dying.

So things get worse but with luck I'll be on the dance floor when the light flickers out and the bluesman wails his last song.

Wearing it out . . .

The dance has been good to me but now just when I have the time to spend dancing often my body appears to have worn itself out.

Why I want to talk dancing

I go dancing at least once a week. The band starts up and usually I am one of the first onto the floor. And right from the start I am dancing. Sometimes, well even maybe most of the time, my partner acts mystified by my confidence. But I don't really care about that except as it impedes our progress. I am a firm believer in the "Shut up and dance" school of thought. I can only have a discussion about what we are doing if it really is mutual. So I try, and sometimes fail, to dance through my connections with my partner and let that be my conversation. Because it isn't that I don't want to talk, I just don't want to talk about dance when I could be letting the dancing do the talking.

Westie world and what it means . . .

I've been talking dance on both coasts the last couple of weeks thanks to a blogger visit that cued me into www.strictlywestie.com a New York based West Coast Swinger's blog. I have wanted to be able to discuss the social, political, philosophical sides of dance and that's what this and the OC group are all about.

Been gone so long it looks like up to me, hee, hee, hee ...

So it has been a summer of dancing for me. The high point being when Terri and I were dancing at Pechanga resort and the crowd gave us the floor and then applauded as the song concluded. And we were just dancing with each other the way we do when its been too long which it had been. But the rest of the summer stuff wasn't so bad either. Every Wednesday we watched Dancing with the Stars and damn if it didn't really grow on me. I generally hate dance competitions but in this case the spirited dancers and the fact that we got to know them and the judges made it a fine experience. And now I read the other day that they are going to stage a dance off because of the calamity of the last vote which clearly showed a favoritism towards Kelly that wasn't warranted by her last dance.

We are just now starting to get into the Fox show, So You Think You Can Dance, however. The whole reality thing is just too boring. It's just like being forced to watch your neighbor's videos of their vacation. The deal of making up reality so it seems like a story is surely some sort of cosmic joke, right? Anyway, another great highlight has been the discovery of the OC Swing club site and especially the Underground where all the discussions take place.

Wow!

I signed up for this dance discussion group of mainly lindy hoppers and it is so great to be writing about and discussing dancing with dancers who also want to talk about dancing. If you click on the previous entry you'll link to it. The discussion part is in the OC Underground section and man oh man do the discussions range far and wee. Take a look at dance link in this title.

Swinging Out

Just joined a new dance chat room group up in OC County and the initial results are promising. For one thing the people I've met so far have really wanted to share ideas about dancing. Now alls I have to do is follow the old bouncing ball and see where it takes me.

Skippy Blair Reunion

I just received the annual invitation to Skippy's dance do up in LA and as usual I'm sorely tempted but then I remember how I really feel about all the judgemental one way thinking that goes on at these events and I realize again why I just can't give it even tacit approval anymore. I love the saying "Shut up and dance" and I really feel it should applied forever to those who set themselves up as judges.

Tango

Tango for some reason seems to scare my dance partner. This Friday night I am going to see if I can discover why when we go to a milonga and dance show at our local dance studio.

Went out dancing and

The music swung and the dance partners were sweet. A tall blonde took my lead and turned it into a wavy graceful line, a dark brunette, older, but in love with dance, took my lead and turned it into a chance to express her hope and willingness to try, and then later, another blonde almost captured my love of the dangerous with her smooth and dynamic explosive hips, capricious smiling lips, and courageous dives into my leading dips.

Dance lets me lead many lives. I found myself at the break outside gazing at the bright, clear sky and the sparkling stars. I felt the need to breathe it all in. In my mind, as I, we, move to the music and in and out of each other's embrace I try to trace the maybe of what each move means to her to me? I romanticise by playing with the possibilities. It's good but sometimes frustrating. The dance partners are like ice cream when I can't get enough. The overload is dangerous.

Sometimes I try to . . .

Sometimes I try to . . . remember dancing as a kid. In my memory the radio plays from a car parked in the grocery store parking lot. We dancers are swing dancing to early rock and roll not really aware that things are about to change. My friend, Wendy, who later died from cancer, jumps into my arms for a side to side scissor move and I swing her right then left then up high before bringing her down. We're dancing so fast it's like we're running.