lindy

If you've talked to me in the past 5 years you probably know that I'm into swing dancing- east coast swing, lindy hop, the charleston, and so on. I may not also have mentioned before, but even though I've effectively been dancing... the equivalent of about maybe a year plus a few months on and off over the past few years, I still find social dancing really intimidating. I've think I've gotten considerably better since college, thanks to a weekly venue being nearby and going through a few workshops, but I still very much would rather sit and watch other people on the dance floor than dance myself. (Unless it's a pre-choreographed dance or a jazz routine like the shim sham. I've been realizing more lately that I really like solo jazz, even though learning it is a lot more exhausting.)

I mean, social dancing can actually be pretty fun... once you know what you're doing. I realized pretty early on that, particularly for leads, there's a bit of a limitation based on the size of your repertoire, at first. You can only dance the same few moves so many times without each dance after the next becoming too repetitive, and also discovering how much you keep falling back to those "safe" moves you first learned a long time ago. Even after finally learning how to do something I saw once, being able to reproduce that motion in the spur of the moment while social dancing is really hard; I keep finding myself stumbling midway into trying to recall something and end up either doing a completely different but more common move or making a really obvious and embarrassing mistake in front of my follow- more often the latter. And it feels really intimidating to dance with a follow who you can tell is better than you; they sometimes will correct you in the middle of dancing. In a way, you have to repeat the move you want to do enough times outside of the lesson for it to finally settle into your muscle memory, that repertoire you can fall back on. And the hard part is finding practice, since social dancing isn't always the best time to try to work out the kinks in your muscle memory...

...which is why it's usually good to have someone to practice with. But like any other community, I find I have trouble (perhaps moreso than in other communities) actually befriending people in the swing community [which is to say I haven't much... exactly]. Something about the flurry of the social dance floor at whatever venue I go to... and I end up feeling even more reserved than I did at IV large groups, where it took me the better part of a year or two attending to actually get to know people. And it's kind of awkward to be in that phase where you recognize people after seeing their faces for a while without really knowing them... combined with my aversion to interrupting already existing cliques, it doesn't work out very well.

But anyway... after a six month hiatus from swing (the combination of a twisted ankle post-hiking + being out of town at random over the summer last year, after which I found it difficult to come back), I came back for a weekend long dance workshop hosted at the venue I used to go to. And it was really fun, even though I barely talked to people much as usual. It was nice dancing with follows that you could tell really enjoyed dancing (they tend to smile a lot in the middle of it), and I actually got complimented on my leading a couple of times... interesting since I hadn't danced in so long. In a way, it was like I was just picking up where I left off last year coming back from Camp Jitterbug, since I felt like I was dancing better now than I did back then, ironically. Or perhaps after taking that long of a break, I somehow have a fresher point of view of where I can improve and what to look out for and practice in my dancing.

[I also realize how out of shape I am and am suffering in muscle soreness right now... although it was practically about 10 hours of dancing in three days.]

I might start going back to the venue again, if I can get over the usual mid-week blues. I still find myself largely not wanting to go right before it's time to leave work, largely because of... well, work, or even the fact that I still have work the next day just makes me feel too out of it, or something else comes up. But I still really want to learn the Big Apple routine at some point, anyway. and maybe social dance once in a while.