I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything about balboa, the dance. I’ve never posted about it because I don’t ever do it, despite it being a very popular swing dance. People have tried pressuring me to learn it, but my interest in anything but watching it has been low. Balboa is typically danced to fast music and when the music is fast I don’t know how I could be happier than doing anything other than lindy hop and partner charleston. Balboa does look cool though.
Here’s a balboa clip from the Rhythmic Arts Festival I attended over New Years.
What’s funny is that I’ve seen a lot of balboa competitions, but the only ones I’ve had fun watching were at the Rhythmic Arts Festival this year and last.
If you’ve read my little blub in the footer you would know that I love New Orleans style Dixieland Jazz music. This question naturally lends itself, of course, to “who’s your favorite dixieland jazz band?”
So because you asked I’ll tell you. This is liable to change at anytime should I hear a better band, but my favorite as of this writing is a band called The Loose Marbles. I present you with a video. Because I like videos. They are fun.
People liked the videos so I thought I’d post another one today. I don’t know why I never posted this (maybe I did?)! It’s from the Rhythmic Arts Festival which took place over New Years this past year. This is a video of the Jack and Jill finals, which I am in (still not sure how I made finals). For those who don’t know, a jack and jill contest is a contest for which you don’t have an assigned partner. You dance in the prelims with random partners and then for the finals you also get a random partner.
I got a dancer from Denver, Teni, for the finals. We’re the 4th couple. This was the first time (and only time so far) I’d ever made finals in any national competition. I didn’t feel nervous, but my mind was completely blank and I’m not terribly proud of how I danced, but who really cares? It was fun and that’s what matters. Live and learn.
And just because it’s so cool, here’s the partner charleston finals from the same weekend:
I don’t think I’ve ever posted videos of our team performances. So here you go. I’m on the far left in both videos.
This is from Camp Hollywood 2006, where we took 2nd place:
This is from the 2007 Utah Lindy Exchange:
For of you who are thinking “wow, I want them to perform at my next company party!” or something similar to that, check out our cool website, theswingteam.com. The site, by the way, was designed by the incredible designer I work with. He also does photography.
If you dance a lot, I highly suggest recording yourself and watching the videos. You can learn a lot from watching yourself. I’ve been aware of this for a long time, but I rarely put forth the effort to record myself. This past Friday though I was lucky enough to have someone else do the recording. So here is a video of myself dancing with the wonderful Karen:
Watch yourself, and learn. This, of course, not only applies to dancing, but to pretty much everything. Take a step back and look at your work. One of my favorite things about being a programmer and having other programmer friends is that we get to show off to each other what we’ve done (well, we could show it off to other people, but non-programmers just don’t get excited over things like “check out this sweet code, I reduced 20 lines of code to just 3 and it runs way faster now!”). Don’t allow yourself to get discouraged at what you are not. Look at your accomplishments and then pick one thing to work on and then when you’ve done that, go tell somebody about it!
P.S. Don’t bother looking for the other 41 dance tips on here. I don’t think I’ve posted any others. I just figured #42 sounded better than #1. Also, 42 is the answer to everything.
So if you didn’t know, I’m on a swing team. Currently we are called the Salt Lake Jitterbugs, thought that’s likely to change, or not. Website coming soon. Anyway, on Monday of this week we performed at Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City. The occasion was for “From Past to Future: The Israeli Experience.” An Israeli folk dance troupe, Havazalot Netanya Dance Troupe, came to Salt Lake City and performed. And we were the opening act.
Yeah, I know. A swing dance performance was the opening act for an Israeli folk dance concert? I don’t think anyone would match the two up normally, but one of our team members happened to be involved with the people putting this thing on. I thought it was pretty cool: two cultures, two types of dancing. We only danced once, as the opening dance to start it off. It was really fun.
My favorite part! So this routine we performed starts out with the girls on stage with us guys off stage waiting. The girls do a short routine and then we come on and the girls go off, and then the girls come back for the last part of it. While the girls were doing their part I was on the opposite side of the stage, across from the Israeli dancers. It was really fun to see them all start groovin and bustin moves back stage to the music our girls were dancing to. I’m not sure why it was my favorite part, other than perhaps that I just enjoy watching people enjoy music, and I could tell that they were enjoying it. It’s even more exciting for me to see a bunch of dancers enjoy music, especially when they’re as good as they are.
During intermission I overheard someone telling someone else that while they were good dancers, the BYU folk dancers or something like that were a lot better at the Israeli folk dances. He did say that this troupe had more real soul and energy, but the BYU dancers have better technique, are more together, etc. etc.
Whatever. My opinion is that the dancer with the most soul, energy, and true love for the dance is the better dancer. I don’t have anything against any of the BYU dancers and I’m not saying that they don’t love the dances they do and have a ton of energy, but it’s different. The BYU dancers are good, but I have a hard time believing that they’re better than this particular group of dancers just because they’re more together. I’d probably think they were too stiff, too together, overly choreographed, overly trained, and lacking what makes a dance real… at least in comparison. As an example, there are people who would say that they’re really good at swing dancing, but ask anyone who’s any good at lindy hop and they’ll tell you that they’re not.
Only the skilled can judge the skillfulness, but that is not the same as judging the value of the result.
- C.S. Lewis Preface to Paradise Lost
So I’m not skilled in Israeli folk dances. I’m not sure the person who was saying that stuff is either, but he certainly knows more about it than I do. I do though like to think that I am skilled at lindy hop, so I think I can judge the skillfulness, at least on the surface.
What I do know for sure is that I thought they were great. Full of energy, passion, excitement, skill, and endurance. They must have been exhausted by the time it was over.
So what is perfection? To me, when it comes to dancing, perfection is skill combined with visible passion and the Havazalot Netanya dancers had both. Are there dancers “better” than them? Probably, but who cares? That’s not what matters. Too many people get so caught up in “perfection” that they forget to enjoy what they’re experiencing. I participate in a weekly public speaking club, Toastmasters, and I see the same thing there. People who are so concerned with “what a public speaker is” that they miss a lot of really good speeches.
Always strive for perfection, but don’t let it keep you from enjoying life’s simple pleasures.
Me: i’m gonna go play ultimate frisbee!
Her: nice!
Her: i love that game!
Her: i didn’t think you played anything athletic…
Me: dude, lindy hop is athletic
Her: no, it’s not.
Me: is too!
Her: dancing is not a sport.
Me: so what… I get tired when I dance therefore it’s athletic. I am an athlete.
Her: whatever
Me: okay maybe not an athlete, but it’s still athletic.
Her: uh huh
We’ve had this argument several times, and she still refuses to see my side of the story. I think she’s blinded by my obviously superior arguments.
For those who don’t know what lindy hop is, from wikipedia:
Lindy Hop is an African American dance that evolved in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was an organic fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development, but was predominantly based on jazz, tap, breakaway and charleston. Lindy hop co-evolved with jazz music and is a member of the swing dance family. It is frequently described as a jazz or street dance.
I’m an avid “lindy hopper,” and like to go to events and competitions all over the USA (perhaps someday I’ll go out of the USA for dancing). Most recently, I went to Seattle, Washington for a camp called Camp Jitterbug. The photo is from that weekend. Anyway…
As I mentioned, I’ve argued several times with this friend that lindy hop is plenty athletic. I still think it is, but after going and playing Ultimate Frisbee last week, I’ve decided that lindy hop isn’t all that athletic after all. I thought I was gonna die running around on that green stuff called grass. Okay, I still think dancing is athletic, but it’s different. Very different. After nearly dying on the field I’ve determined that I’m in what experts everywhere would call “so out of shape you should be dead.” No, actually it’d probably be more along the lines of “moderately out of shape.”
Dancing has been, for the last few years, practically all of the physically demanding activity that I’ve done. I’ve hardly done anything else. I’ve played basketball a few times, gone on a few hikes, but mostly I’ve sat in front of a computer and gone dancing. Had it not been for dancing I doubt I’d have been able to make it across the field even once. Of course, had I not been dancing all the time maybe I’d have gone out and done other things.
Dancing is great, and regardless of what anyone else says lindy hop is (or at least can be if you dance fast enough) quite athletic. Maybe it’s more like aerobics. heh. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s really fun. But I also need to get out more and run around under the big blue sky. It’s really bright out there, but I hear you get used to it…
So I was in Sacramento over the weekend for the Sacramento Lindy Exchange. Though you won’t hear me admit it very often, I really do like lindy hopping in Utah, really. It’s just that the scene is pretty small and I get burned out quite often. I used to go out swing dancing 3-4 times a week, if I could. Now I just go twice a week, once for a team practice and once for fun. Why do I bring this up in a post about the Sacramento lindy exchange? Because dancing with all of the really good dancers in Sacramento (I’ll give credit to the OC lindy exchange as well a few weeks ago, which I forgot to post about), as cheesy as it may sound, got me excited about dancing again. I’m not sure how it goes for other forms of dance, but as far as lindy hop is concerned, if you don’t travel, you’re only gonna get so good. Traveling to other places to dance, meeting lots of new people, dancing with people you may or may not see again, watching lots of really good dancers, and the excitement of being on vacation all contribute to a better learning environment. Of course, the hard part is maintaining that excitement and new level of dancing when you return to your normal dances with all of your normal friends. Don’t take me wrong. I’m really not complaining about “normal dances” and “normal friends.” While I learn a lot and am inspired through my travels, I really get to put things into practice at the “normal dances” with my “normal friends.” If it weren’t for the “normal friends” you practice with, who you critique and who critique you, you’d be pretty limited. Of course, there are other aspects that come into how fast you can learn such as if you take group lessons, private lessons, watch videos, etc., but my point today is that traveling is fun, but don’t eat the oranges off the trees at the State Capitol building in Sacramento in late March. They were really, really gross.
I can’t wait to practice and solidify all the crazy ideas I got over the weekend.
The 2007 Utah Lindy Exchange has once again come and gone. And again, it was really really fun. I helped plan and run things again this year and was stressed out pretty much all of Friday and part of Saturday. After the Saturday night dance was underway and our team performance was through I was able to relax a lot more and really enjoy it. I met a lot of really cool people and had a blast. One of the most unique things we did that no other lindy exchange has one (or even could do) is sledding! I took one video. Should have done more, I think this the one I did is hilarious. The video is of me taking a sledding run. Enjoy. Oh yeah, click the photo for my photos.
Another awesome event has come and gone! The Rhythmic Arts Festival in San Diego was awesome! Can’t wait until next year! Also! I took a gazillion pictures! I usually forget about the camera completely.
Texas is flat! Okay, not all of, but most of what I saw was really flat. And, it was a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be. The weather was nice. The Austin Lindy Exchange was, of course, totally sweet. Great dancing was had by all. I even took a decent amount of pictures, though only of dancing.
On Saturday (the 18th) we went to the Salt Lick BBQ with a group of dancers. Oh wow. The food there is awesome. All the BBQ you could possibly eat. We all got the Family Style menu item and ate till we were sick. It was beautiful. It was a fairly long drive out to the middle of no where, but once there it was well worth the drive.
I originally didn’t want to post it because of my very obvious screw ups. Also, I wasn’t always consistently on the beat. I have now chosen to call that syncopation. heh
Dancing and dancing in a competition is a lot different. It really isn’t, but in my head it was. No more! I’m done with that. I dance much better when I don’t worry about it.
A few months ago I challenged a guy to a lindy hop battle just for fun. He counter challenged with another guy so it ended up 4 on 4 instead of 2 on 2. He also picked the song and the format of the battle. I can’t remember what the song is called. It’s used at Camp Jitterbug for some of their finals (it’s also in this video clip). It’s about 270 BPM and really sweet. It was a lot of fun. It was judged by the crowd and we ended up winning. If it had been judged by actual judges I think it might have been a different outcome, but that’s part of the fun of it! So this picture is us with the “Golden Goose” award. The idea is to have more challenges and have the Golden Goose get passed around. Funny though, I think it’s actually a swan, not a goose. Oh well, “Golden Goose” sounds better than “Golden Swan.”
I might upload the video and link it here, but no promises. Update 8/25:Find video here.
I just got back from Camp Hollywood 2006 a few hours ago. I had a blast, which came at no surprise I might add. I didn’t actually dance as much as I thought I would (I took 16+ shirts with me), but had a great time anyway. I competed in a few competitons with no results to speak of, except of course, in the team division. I am a part of the “Salt Lake Jitterbugs” swing team. We took 2nd place (out of three teams)!
See my photos on Flickr. Well, photos taken with my camera anyway. I took a few of them, but most were taken by friends wielding my camera.
The carpet in the LA Marriott hotel is great, isn’t it?
Wow. I just got back Camp Jitterbug, the best lindy hop event I’ve ever attended, which was held in Seattle, Washington. Amazing music, amazing dancers, great workshops, great hosts, great company (I stayed in a small one bedroom apartment with 17 other people), great city, awesome competitions, amazing music, amazing dancers, and you get the point. I think the main thing for me was the music. I love fast, bouncy, “charleston” music and there was plenty to be had in Seattle. I am in love. The faster the music, the more energy I get.
Last weekend was the 2006 Denver Lindy Exchange. I was very much against the idea of driving, as I usually hate driving more than 7 hours or so. I drove to the Sacramento lindy exchange back in March and that was torture. Due to some people though who wanted to go to Denver, but couldn’t fly I decided to drive. It actually wasn’t that bad. Mainly because I drove my own car. I like the freedom I guess… and the leg room. Anyway, I drove out to Denver with my sister who ended up driving back home with some friends and I drove back with another friend. Anyway, the dancing was fantastic. The Denver lindy exchange is always a treat, especially so with the food they provide at the dances! mmmmmmm… The music at the exchange left a little to be desired though. I prefer faster music than they played, but I still had a great time. They did have a “fast room” and I enjoyed that a lot, but that turned into a blues room (slower music) at 3 AM. Not everything can be perfect I guess. :) Anyway, a good time was bad by all.
My photos on flickr:
About a month ago I went to the so-called LA Lindy Exchange. I say so-called because it wasn’t much of a lindy exchange. It was more like I was there on a normal weekend with a few other people from out of town. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not what I had expected. In fact, one could say it was more like the first lindy exchange than anything else. The very first lindy exchange happened when a group of Chicago lindy hoppers went to San Francisco for a weekend a number of years ago. The Chicago dancers just enjoyed the local venues as they normally function. Most lindy exchanges now are too large to be held at the normal venues. I think that’s good and bad. I love being able to go to cool venues with tons of people, but it’s also nice to be able to go to the normal dance venues and get a better idea of what the scene there is really like.
If I had just been there for the exchange, and the exchange alone, I wouldn’t have had as much fun as I did. My friend Jonathan and I stayed in LA with my friend Vi. Vi took us all over and we were able to enjoy several beaches as well as Disneyland (thanks to a family friend of Vi who got us in for free)! Good times were had by all!
Whew! I think I’m finally rested after an awesome weekend in the DC area! I flew out to DC on Wednesday of last week (the 5th) and flew back on Monday. I was able to attend the weekly K2 dance on Wednesday, the pre exchange dance at the Jam Cellar on Thursday night and then an amazing lindy exchange with awesome music and dancers! Performing bands were Campus Five, Blue Sky 7, Boilermaker Jazz Band, George Gee, and the Boilermakers and George Gee together. Oh, and the Clarence Turner Blues band or something like that. The blues band was good, but I don’t particularly enjoy dancing to blues music so I really only danced the DJ’d band breaks.
I did get more pictures in DC than I did in Sacramento, but I once again somehow avoided getting any pictures taken of myself. With my camera at least. I may be in someone else’s collection.
View my photos on flickr:
This was my second time at DCLX and I can’t wait for it again next year!
This past weekend I went to the Sacramento Lindy Exchange. *drools* I had so much fun. I hadn’t traveled to any out of state swing dancing events since September when I went to the Cleveland Lindy Exchange. It was good to be out dancing again at a big out of state event. I love traveling.
To keep this short, I won’t go on and on about the amazing dancers I danced with. I hardly got any sleep… stayed up until at least 6:30 AM every night. Dance dance dance. It was fun, and that’s all. As usual, I forgot to take a lot of pictures. I managed to get 38, then accidentally deleted one so I ended up with 37.
View my photos on flickr (no, that’s not me in the picture):
The 2006 Utah Lindy Exchange has just ended (edit: errr… when I wrote this anyway. It’s now been over two weeks). Wow! What a weekend! My photos of the events.
It started Thursday evening at the University of Utah for the Pre-Exchange dance. That event was not sponsored by the Utah Swing Dance Association (which I am a part of). The UofU had the Lloyd Miller Band (a favorite from ULX ‘05) and a great time was had by all. Good times. There were a lot of out of towners already here on Thursday. A lot came early for the skiing/boarding. Dancing went from 8 – 11 PM.
Friday Afternoon we held a dance at the Salt Lake Coffee Break, music was DJ’d. It was our official although relaxed kick off for the exchange. A good time was had by all. Dancing went from 12 – 4 PM.
Friday Evening we held a dance at the Apollo ballroom in American Fork. The floor there is very very very slick! Almost too slick for my tastes… way too slick for some. Dancing really fast on a floor like that with leather soled shoes can be hazardous to one’s health (and the health of those around you!) Music was provided by the amazing Melissa Pace. A few dancers who happen to play in jazz bands joined Melissa for a few songs here and there. These were Peter Vawter (violin) and Solomon Douglas (piano). They did awesome as well. Peter’s violin solos caused eruptions of applause and shouting. A super amazing time was had by all. Dancing went from 9 PM – 12 AM.
Friday late night we held a dance at an ex frat house in SLC. We believe this was the first time a lindy exchange event has been held in a frat house. It was really crowded, but everyone enjoyed it a lot. There was a lot of hang out space for hanging out and chattin’. The blues room (the room with slow blues music) was in the basement. It was really dark in there. I prefer upbeat faster music so I didn’t dance down there, but I did blind a lot of people temporarily by taking a few pictures. The groans and shouting from people who I’d blinded were worth it. Dancing went from 1 AM – 6 AM I think. I left around 4:30ish I think. Officially, it was supposed to end at 4, but people just didn’t want to leave!
I slept in past noon, just enjoying the sleep. We didn’t have any dancing during the day. Most people went skiing or snow boarding on Utah’s award winning slopes and snow.
Saturday Evening we held the dance at the Utah Fair Park Grand Building. The Grand Building has a large wood floor and lots of space for tables. Music was provided by the New Deal Swing band, who are members of the Utah Symphony. This was the band a few of us performed with at the Utah Symphony’s big band Christmas concert. The band hadn’t ever played for a dance before and didn’t really know what exactly to play (tempos and such), but in my opinion they did AWESOME. I loved every minute of it. Absolutely amazing music. Anyway, we held our second annual “Polygamy Lindy Contest” at the fair park. For those of you who don’t know, the polygamy lindy exchange was started by the ULX committee last year as nothing more than a funny competition. Each “lead” (normally a guy) starts out with two “follows” (not necessarily girls). Dancing with two follows is normally called “double bug,” but this is not your normal double bug competition. After each round couples (errr.. groups) are eliminated and the leads sit out and watch, but the follows stay in the competition and are divided up among the other leads! By the end there were two “couples” left. Two leads, 9 follows each!! 9 follows! Utterly hilarious. The crowd votes by cheering. This year’s winner was the second place winner last year… who happens to be a guy serving in Iraq. He came back to Utah just for the lindy exchange! :) A super great time was had by all. Dancing went from 9 PM – 12 PM. Some videos can be found here.
There was a Saturday late night at the Apollo ballrom and a Sunday afternoon dance at the frat house again. I didn’t go to either of these dances, but I hear that they were quite enjoyable.
And that’s all! We had people come from 22-25 states, Canada, and Australia! There were especially large groups from in and around Denver and from in and around Sacramento. I had a blast. My feet hurt for days afterwards from all the dancing.
Tonight, Friday, and Saturday I’m performing with a group for the Utah Symphony Christmas Big Band Christmas concert! We’ve been practicing a few months now. I’m glad it’s finally happening. I’ll also be glad when it’s over! :)
We’re dancing three songs. Two choreographed, one just winging it social dance style.
On Saturday (the 8th of October) I danced (Lindy Hop swing dancing) in my 3rd and 4th competitions!
The first competition I was ever in was after I’d been dancing for maybe 2 months, I don’t remember. We lost horribly.
The second competition I was in was February of this year. I don’t know how bad we lost, but we lost. Different partner.
The third competition was yesterday as I mentioned. It was “Jack and Jill” competition. All the leads (the guys) picked who they would dance with. I got a girl named Sharon, which I was very happy about. She’s an awesome dancer. Her husband Jon was also in the competition. Their website is how2dance.com, check it out! They’re awesome! There were six couples total. There were two heats, 3 couples at a time, and then an all skate with all six on the floor at the same time.
Sharon and I placed 4th of the 6th. All we wanted was to have fun and that’s exactly what we did. We got the crowd cheering and thus we were happy. All three songs were faster than I had expected, but still not too fast. We could have done better had it been slower of course (not too slow though!), but so would have many of the others. :) I highly enjoyed the competition. The couple that won did an amazing job (they freaking rocked!)
The fourth competition, also yesterday as I mentioned, was a “Swing Kids Trophy Challenge” as they called it. They had each university (that wanted to) in Utah send their two best couples to compete against each other. The winning couple gets a trophy, which they keep for a year at the school and bring it back the next year. The names of the winning couple also gets put on it. Last year Utah State University won.
I don’t actually go to the University of Utah, but I attend their swing club more than any of the others so I danced with a girl (Kristen) who goes to the UofU. There were 8 couples total: two from BYU, two from Utah State, two from Salt Lake Community, one from Weber State, and one from the U (Kristen and I). The original plan was to dance all skate (all on the floor at the same time) to three songs. One slow, one medium, one fast. They ended up playing four, with the fourth being another fast one (well… medium/fast). We screwed up several of our “flashy” moves, but kept on going and did them again successfully. The fourth song was by far our best even though we were extremely tired (our screw ups were very small). If it weren’t for the crowd cheering I don’t think I could have finished. I have a tendency to put A LOT of energy into my dancing, especially when people are watching me like that. So to go four songs in a row like that, especially with the faster ones, was crazy! I had a ton of fun, but was skeptical because of our screw ups in the first three songs, but we ended up winning! Whoooo hoooo! The University of Utah gets the trophy for the next year!
Oh yeah, no lifts or aerials were allowed in either of the competitions yesterday. They allowed drops and small tosses, but didn’t want anyone going over anyones head. I prefer competions with that stuff allowed*, but oh well. That kind of thing provides a huge advantage over people that don’t know any, or many.
Overall, I’ve decided that I like competing. It still turns my stomach into a giant knot, but I figure that’ll go away eventually. Maybe. :)
* = When people think of swing dancing they picture girls flying all over the place, but Lindy Hop really isn’t like that ALL the time. They’re almost non-existant in social dancing, as I believe they should be. Aerials in social dancing is asking to get kicked in the head, get dropped on your head, etc. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen at dances and it’s not pretty. That kind of stuff is for performances, some competitions, and show off moments with plenty of room. If you want to see cool lindy hopping with all the cool aerials and stuff check out www.dcswingdancing.com and www.one2swing.com
After the Cleveland Lindy Exchange I rented a car and drove to Cincinnati to visit friends. I served a LDS mission in the Cincinnati area 2 years ago.
I got to the Cleveland airport on Thursday the 22nd at 3:00 PM. My flight was at 6:30 PM, so I was there way early. I finally left the airport on Friday the 23rd at 5:00 PM EST. I had a connection in Chicago at 8 PM CST. I was delayed another hour there and finally landed in Salt Lake City at 11:40 PM MST.
Firefox 1.5 beta 1 is cool! I love the speed imrovements to the back and forward buttons! I think I posted about how I like the speed with which you can move forward and backward in Opera. I guess I wasn’t the only one with that complaint! Yay!
Ever had a dream in which you were being so incredibly productive that when your alarm went off, you really believed you were getting more work done in bed so you stayed there?
Yeah, it took me a while this morning to figure out that I wasn’t actually getting any work done while sleeping. Hard to believe, I know.
That dream was followed by a few more weird dreams including having a swing dancer from DC come suddenly out of my computer. We danced, but she really sucked, which is odd because she doesn’t in real life. Then more dancers showed up in my room saying that the dance at the University of Utah had ended early. Then one of them started talking to me in Spanish, which is fine because he really does speak Spanish, and so do I, and so does the other guy in the dream, and so does the girl from DC. How weird is that?
I guess having Yehoodi radio for an alarm doesn’t work so well.
Just uploaded a bunch of photos to my flickr account. Pictures include Camp Hollywood pictures, family reunion pictures, other dancing pictures, and other misc stuff.
I got back from Camp Hollywood last night. All I have to say right now is that it rocked! I think it’ll be a week or two before I catch up on my sleep.
Pictures coming soon (along with all the others I’ve said that are coming soon).
Yesterday the Utah Swing Dance Association held a Fundraiser for a guy named Nate. Nate got really sick with a rare form of blood posioning back in April and after several months in the hospital was finally released, but without several of his fingers, part of his right foot, and most of his left leg. He’s really lucky to be alive. I don’t know how much money we raised, but I know we did get some. And anything helps!
Here are some pictures of the event (click to view all).
I got back from the Denver Lindy Exchange on Sunday night. I’ve got my photos uploaded to Flickr! Check them out: DLX 2005 photos
In short, DLX 2005 rocked. Great exchange, great people, great dancing, great food, great fun, great people, great dancing, did I mention it was great?
In case you noticed, I haven’t been posting. Reason being I wasn’t around! I was in Washingon D.C. at the D.C. Lindy Exchange. I’ll be posting photos later today. All I’m going to say for now is WOW WOW WOW! DCLX was awesome. So amazing. That’s all for now.
Another post about swing dancing! whoo hoo! About the recent California trip again. We’ve got a website up and are posting pictures. We’ve got four seven albums so far. Waiting for a bunch more.
I’m the one in the Firefox shirt on the main page.
I haven’t been able to concentrate very well for the past 40 hours or whatever it’s been since returning home. I’m so excited for the D.C. Lindy Exchange coming up!
Sacramento was amazing. San Francisco was too. Tons of swing dancing. Lots of driving. So much fun. Not enough sleep. Snow storms in the Sierra mountains are not my favorite thing. Neither is the necessity of buying snow chains when the roads weren’t THAT bad. Getting delayed 2 hours by said snow was not so fun.
Pictures of all the California adventures coming soon. I didn’t actually take any pictures myself, but others in the group took plenty (there were 16 of us in all who drove out there — we met up with a few more who had gone by plane).
Did I mention that all the swing dancing, and just being a tourist was awesome? What a great trip. It’s now 8 AM. I’ve been home for an hour, and I have to go into work at 10. *sigh*
A new website I partially designed is online for all to see: http://www.swingutah.com/ (swing as in swing dancing, not the other kind of “swing”) I say partially designed because I didn’t create the graphics. I put it all together with WordPress 1.5! WordPress 1.5 seriously rocks. I love it.
Anyway, the website will be changing. The main page will be more of a portal than a blog. We just got it up and online to replace the out-of-date site about the 2005 Utah Lindy Exchange.
What?! It’s March already? How did that happen? And it’s already the second day of March. Well, 4:20 AM on the second day, but still!
Recent happenings:
- I crashed a server with mod_rewrite in .htaccess
- I went swing dancing
- No seriously, I went swing dancing! ha!
- More detail: Dan and Tiffany, instructors from Denver, came to SLC to do some workshops. 11 1/2 hours of workshops! This was last weekend. They’re awesome! They wore me out. After several days of no sleep I finally recovered by sleeping until 11 AM this morning. Now I’m going to bed past 4 AM just to get up at 9 AM and start the behind-on-sleep-schedule thing all over again. Blast it all.
- Beth got engaged (see photos section, I’m too lazy to make a link). She used to comment on here. Not anymore. Now I know why. (Congrats Beth!)
- I skipped two days of swing dancing (Monday and Tuesday of this week) because my shoulder is hurting from all the workshops and dancing over the weekend (with the dances it was a total of about 17 hours of dancing in two days). I hurt my shoulder several years ago while shopping. Yes, shopping! I’ll expound in greater detail another day. Perhaps later today.
- I’ve been doing a lot of contract/freelance web design and programming.
- I ate a banana split today.
- Two actually.
- Did you know a banana splits naturally into several slices if you push your finger or tounge or something down the middle of it? I had forgotten about that until today! (No I won’t tell you how many slices it splits into. You’ll have to try it.)
- My friend left his laptop at my house.
- I hope he calls and says “you keep it”.
- That’s not very likely though.
- Because he needs it for work in a few hours.
- haha
- If it weren’t 4:30 AM I’d go make another banana split.
- That reminds me of the banana phone!
- I should end on that note.
Goodnight. Ring ring ring ring ring ring! Banana Phone!
Well I did it! I finally got my film developed. Long ago I said I’d try to post a picture a week. Since I haven’t done that I figure this should make up for it, right? Right? Okay, no it doesn’t. It’s still good though.
If you ever had any reason to question if you should learn how to swing dance or not, the picture to the right should be more than enough to get that burning desire started within you. Then again, maybe not. The pictures in this album are enough though! Check them out!
The Utah Lindy Exchange this past weekend totally kicked my trash. I went to bed at 2:30 PM Sunday afternoon and didn’t get up until 7:30 AM this morning. I’ll write up a big post about the whole weekend later. Also! I didn’t forget to take pictures! Amazing, I know. I’m excited to get them back, I hope I got some good ones.
I registered today for the Washington D.C. Lindy Exchange in April! I also plan on attending the Exchanges in Denver, Seattle, and some others as well.
This weekend is going to be awesome. Why? It’s the Utah Lindy Exchange! Swing dancing Friday (today), Saturday, and Sunday from 8PM to 4 AM! While I won’t be participating on Sunday I’ll be there for all of today and tomorrow. Last night, was kind of the kick off with the UofU swing club dance. Quite a few of the out-of-towners went to it. That’s the best thing about lindy exchanges. It’s not just the hours and hours of dancing, but the fact that it’s an exchange. You see, cities all over the world hold lindy exchanges. Have I posted about this before? Seems like it. Oh well. The idea of an exchange is that swing dancers travel to them. They’re big events intended to drawn in a crowd. People come to your cities’ exchange and you go to theirs. I still have yet to attend any other cities’ exchange, but I plan on it this year. I hope to attend at least the Denver exchange and a few in California. I really want to go to the D.C. exchange, but who knows.
Anyway… for ULX 2005 (ULX stands for Utah Lindy Exchange) we have over 170 out of state pre-registrations! With all the people that didn’t register in advance and will be paying at the door this is going to be one heck of a PARTY! I am going to wear myself out silly! Even though the exchange hasn’t officially started yet, I’m already off to a good start with almost no sleep last night (1 hour 45 minutes by the time I got to bed, 45 minutes of which I was pushing snooze every 4 minutes), dancing for the morning news, working all day, dancing from 8-11 (which I danced harder than I’ve danced in a long time), and going out to eat and staying out late with a bunch of dancers after the dance. And I’m loving every minute of it.
I’m going to take lots of pictures and hopefully get some video as well. That is, if I don’t get so involved in the dancing that I forget about the cameras. :-D I do that skiing, and I did it at last night’s dance. No more forgetting! I will take pictures! I only wish I had that “I’m blogging this” t-shirt from ThinkGeek.
While contemplating this article I thought of doing detailed comparisons with dancing and life, but have instead decided that this is unnecessary. I don’t wish to beat a dead horse. Actually, that would be better said I don’t want to kill the living horse. Instead, I’d just like to finish this off with a few comments and clarifications.
In Part I of this article I mentioned several times the ever so important aspect of paying attention to your partner. We could replace “your partner” with “those around you” and it would work a little better. I’ve noticed since I posted that article that I appear to really screw this part up. It’s not exactly what it appears though (or maybe my perception of this is completely wacko). I’m messing up the other half of it, which I failed to mention in part I. Well, I guess it’s there, it’s just not plainly stated. It’s a little more complete being said “pay attention to those around you and respond appropriately.” It doesn’t do any good to notice what someone is doing if you don’t change what you’re doing. Even if we’re doing nothing wrong there are things we can change to help others out (still without doing anything wrong). Anyway… a little bit of background about myself, and I don’t mean this to sound like I’m boasting at all. I consider myself a pretty observant person. I notice a lot of things most people completely look over. I remember names, dates, faces, places, conversations, and other random things very well. I notice how people treat me each time I see them. I notice smiles, facial expressions, voice tones, blah blah blah. To a lot of people this seems a bit freakish or stalkerish and I usually play dumb as not to scare people off (girls in particular). I don’t want them to think I’m recording conversations and taking secret pictures of them or anything. I just remember. With all of this though, I don’t, however, always choose to “respond appropriately”. I often try to ignore what I see, hoping a situation will change or that I’m just mis-interpreting what I see or feel. Am I crazy? Should I respond all the time to what I see or hear or continue at it the way I’ve been doing it? The next item in this article talks a bit about those things you shouldn’t respond to. Great. Just when you think we’re getting somewhere with this we have to change it (or maybe we were never getting anywhere at all anyway).
Often times in swing dancing either the follow or lead will do something that isn’t really meant to be responded to. Examples of this are crazy footwork one partner will throw in for fun, and many girls do all sorts of crazy hip swiveling action that isn’t really supposed to be responded to. But wait! Partners should allow the other partner to do all of that. So, so much for these examples. I guess what I’m trying to say without getting too confusing is that sometimes “responding appropriately” means “doing nothing” or “waiting” or “allowing personal space”, among a plethora of other possibilities (maybe even ignoring something, hoping the situation will change?). Real life example: When a girl tells a guy about a problem, does she really want a solution? Most likely not. Responding appropriately in this kind of situation is most likely to be some kind of mix between “doing nothing”, “allowing personal space”, and saying something like “man, you really need a big bucket of ice cream, don’t you?”. Okay, so one of those was a joke. I’ll let you decide which one. When in doubt, saying something like “I don’t really understand how you feel, but I am always here to listen. If you want to talk more or ask me for advice please don’t hesitate.” is always better than trying to offer advice on a subject you really don’t understand from the right perspective, if at all. This goes for both men and women, not just women talking to men. It just so happens that men are far worse at offering any real advice and women seem to be the ones talking a lot more than men. :)
So either I’m crazy or I just need to learn how to respond appropriately better. But — can it really be said that I should respond differently to certain situations or am I reacting appropriately? At the moment, and most of the time afterwards I feel like I responded in a manner that I felt appropriate. But am I making the best decisions? That’s something I need to decide. It’s something each of us need to decide. And we do decide. Each and every day we decide. I just hope that by making it a little more conscious we’ll be able to improve our reactions and therefore our relationships with those around us. Just remember that the only one who can decide how you will react in different situations is YOU. And for the religious readers, prayer and study never hurt in these matters. :)
My final comment in this article is that relationships are NEVER one-sided (just like most parts of swing dancing). It’s called a relationship for a reason. A one-way relationship is not a relationship. It’s a relationlessship (I’m so funny), a ship with no crew. It won’t go anywhere. Relationlessships (ha) are not doomed though. Get a crew on board. Change it. Do your part. Do more than your part until the other person does theirs. I do realize though that some ships get sunk by the unfortunate proverbial torpedo. And of course there are the relationships that were never meant to work out anyway. But hey, I didn’t want to end this on a negative note! So go grab yourself a huge bucket of ice cream. You look like you could use it.
And thus concludes this article. Comments and suggestions are most welcome. Thanks for reading.
I said I’d try to post a picture a week. That seems like a long time ago to me, but it was actually just last Monday so I’m doing good! :)
This picture was taken last Saturday at a local mall called South Towne Mall. Notice the Firefox T-Shirt! Woo hoo! The girl on the right (Kristen) not only uses Firefox, but loved the T-Shirt! I didn’t know she was a Mozilla fan until that day.
The purpose for dancing at the mall was not just for fun only. It was also to… actually, just read what I wrote in this post about last Saturday. No need to say it again.
I’m not very good at dancing with two girls at once, but it was fun!
I love making comparisons. I like to see how things relate to each other. There are a lot of things to be learned if we only apply them to our lives. For example, kumquats, treacle, and the super bowl. How do all of these apply to our lives to benefit us? They don’t! ha! Okay so those were bad examples (I bet if you really wanted to, you could come up with something). ANYWAY… through swing dancing I have learned a lot about life. Allow me to explain.
In Swing Dancing, or any partner dance for that matter, there are a few aspects that are key to the dance. Without these you will not dance well. I’m not sure about the specifics of other dances, so I’m going to use mostly swing dancing in this article. Lindy Hop to be more specific.
Key aspects to dancing: Communication! Communication! Communication! Also known as connection. Or non-verbal communication.
Key aspects to relationships: Communication! Communication! Communication! Can also be known as connection. Both verbal and non-verbal.
Do you see the connection here? ha! I’m so funny.
Ok, yes… this is all very obvious so far. A connection is necessary. A non-verbal one for dancing. When you’re learning it helps to have explanations for different leads and follows, but once you learn you’re expected to know how to lead or follow without the spoken words. Of course, there are some complicated aerials and moves that require both parties to know before hand what’s going to happen. This is usually communicated verbally although I wouldn’t put it past anyone to spit on each other to communicate complex things. Um… I’m totally kidding about that last part.
Even though you understand this concept, you may not have thought about it deeply enough yet. When many people think of dancing and the connection required they think about hands and maybe arms. While hands do a lot, it’s not near enough. It needs to be your whole body — your hands, arms, legs, torso, head, shoulders, knees, and toes, eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Okay so I’m getting carried away a bit. I don’t recall ever leading a move by wiggling my ears. That doesn’t mean I haven’t tried though. ;) Anyway, the point is that it’s not just your hands or arms.
I’ve only been at this whole swing dancing thing since February of this year. So I’m sure I’m missing a lot and I know I need a lot of improvement in all of these areas. So I decided to ask some people with more experience than I have. I got this amazing response: “all i know is this: I got in trouble for not dancing with my blind date at [the mall]. blast this hobby! *rolling eyes*” So much for that.
Connection between you and your partner includes, but is not limited to:
How you hold hands (it’s different in swing than in ballroom or latin dances)
Arm/hand positioning: in ballroom dance the guy’s left and girl’s right hand are up in the air pretty high. For swing dancing they should be fairly relaxed and low when in a closed position. The guy’s right hand and girl’s left hand even go in different places on the girls back and guys shoulder/arm area. The reason for this is the connection for the different movements the dances have. Swing dancing in a waltz position is just not going to work well.
Arms should stay bent at the elbow.
Arm tension: not loosey goosey, but not too tense either.
Shoulders square with your partner’s shoulders.
Pay attention to your partner! (YES, this is a part of communicating, believe it or not)
I know there’s more, but that’s not terribly important right now. What’s important is that you realize it’s your whole body that affects the dance — and that you need to respond to what your partner’s body is doing as well. From the way the guy moves his fingers to the way the girl moves her hips.
Pay attention to your partner! (did I already mention this one?)
It’s when all of this comes together that it works. If you’re holding hands right, your arms are in the right positions, you keep your shoulders square, but your arms are way too tense it’s not going to be right. If everything is right except your shoulders it’s not gonna feel or look right. If you’ve got it all down, but you keep kicking your partner maybe you should learn the footwook now that you’ve got the connection down. :) When it all comes together, when you get it just right, is when you are really able to feel the music. You can feel the dance. Your lead or follow becomes an afterthought. It just works and the feeling is amazing. Life is the same way. When you have that connection with someone, whether that person be a friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife the feeling is great. You understand each other. Best friends aren’t just best friends because they have a lot in common. While that has a part in it, it’s also because they understand each other. They are able to communicate with each other. And it’s not always verbal. Do you feel comfortable around certain people because of the way the act? Not what they say, but the way they communicate non-verbally.
A few weeks ago it was pointed out to me that I was pulling my hand the wrong direction at a certain point in the dance. The girls know what they’re supposed to do at that point in the dance and never got it wrong from what I was doing (well, the ones that knew what they were doing anyway), but that doesn’t mean it was as good as it could have been. The woman who pointed it out to me followed it like I was leading it and it was horrible! It’s been hard to correct my bad habit, but since then I have noticed a difference in the way the dance feels. The whole thing flows better. It’s very subtle, but the girls do follow it differently! I had no idea. Constructive criticism can be a good thing (“Try it like this and see if you can tell what the difference is.” is a lot different than “You idiot!”). If we don’t help each other learn, we’ll keep doing the wrong thing.
I’d like to go on, but it’s past 3 AM now (I’m rather tired. I hope all of this has made sense!) So this is going to be in two parts. I don’t know when Part II will be posted. Hopefully within a week. In closing to Part I, I’d just like to say: Communication! Communication! Communication! Pay attention to the signals you are giving. Pay attention to signals from others. Everything counts. Break your bad habits now before they get worse. Don’t worry only about yourself. When the connection is there and it’s right it feels great. Why would you want anything else?
I have some ideas for Part II, but they’re all rather incomplete at the moment. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Just in case you were wondering, my Saturday was great! “Why?” you might venture. Well let me tell you!
Saturday morning and early afternoon were normal. Towards the end of the afternoon I went to a local mall (I added the word local for clarification purposes) to swing dance! The swing dance was held by the USDA. No, not the meat thing. USDA also stands for Utah Swing Dance Association. The term “USDA Approved” takes on a whole new meaning now, doesn’t it? I heard they thought about USA for Utah Swing Association, but the word “swing” also means other things so they decided against that. Not to mention it seems like USA is a popular acronym for something else? hmmm… Anyway, the purpose of the dance was to attract the attention of holiday shoppers to get them excited about swing dancing! The USDA is starting 5 week lessons in January and wants to get the word out.
Swing dancing always brightens my day, but it only got better from there: After hurrying home to clean up, I had the privilege to go on a date with a beautiful young lady! We went out to eat at a place called Kneaders. Kneaders is a bakery/sandwich & soup shop thingy. It’s great. I have no idea if they’re just in Utah, but if you ever get the chance to eat there I would recommend it. The atmosphere is fun too. I like couches in restaurants.
After eating we went to see The Forgotten Carols. If you haven’t seen, or even heard of The Forgotten Carols I strongly suggest you check it out! I was going to describe it in my own words, but an editorial on amazon.com explains it just fine:
From Publishers Weekly
Surely the most innovative holiday book this season, McLean’s slim debut novel, which began life as a musical, includes a CD with eight songs by the author that are integral to the story. When straitlaced nurse Constance Chamberlin is assigned to care for elderly “Uncle John” in his mansion during the Christmas holidays, the dour young woman has reason to think that her patient has deep psychological problems. His constant cheerfulness, intense candor and compassionate attitude make him appealing. But John insists that he is 2000 years old, and that the ornaments he puts on his Christmas tree were given to him by people who played a small part in the Nativity. The innkeeper who turned away Joseph and Mary, the shepherds who followed the star and an angel are among those commemorated in “the forgotten carols” that John plays for Constance. Of course, John isn’t what he seems, and Constance almost loses her newfound faith until she understands his gift to her. A mixture of whimsy and inspirational message, the story just manages to flow faster than treacle.
Even though the editorial uses the word “treacle” (which I classify as one of those words that “I will probably never use”) to describe the story, it really is a great story that flows faster than most liquids and all things solid. So again, if you’ve never heard or seen it before I recommend you do so.
But wait! It gets better! After the show with everyone trying to leave at once the parking lot was flowing a lot like treacle. So, we decided to dance while it cleared out. Turn up the big band music and watch out! Another couple even started dancing with us. It was great. After the cars cleared out (and then a few more songs) we went on our jolly way.
So now you know why my Saturday was great. It doesn’t get much better than swing dancing, being with an amazing girl, a great show, and more dancing (with an amazing girl)!
We’ve heard it before and we’ll hear it again that one of the best ways to cheer yourself up is to help somebody else. Often times though, we really have no idea of the impact we may have had or didn’t have. We may never find out either.
I mentioned in my last post that it felt like this was going to be a very long night. Well, it has been. For a bunch of reasons I don’t feel like going into on here, I was feeling a bit down. Anytime I’m feeling down I have a tendency to over evaluate (I blame it on growing up without brothers) where I am in life. Tonight’s main thought seemed to be “Am I really doing any good?” Of course, evaluating where you are in life can be a positive thing, but if you’re over evaulating and worrying too much about something you’re not going to get anything done.
Some of the most rewarding moments in life are those moments when you find you helped, inspired, or cheered somebody else up. Even if it really wasn’t that big of a deal, it does make you feel better.
I love the blogosphere and the amazing opportunities that it provides to make new friends from all over the world. Not that we didn’t know before, but the blog’s reach is definitely not limited to corporate blogging, web standards evangelism, and other geek related things… although that’s what blogs get news coverage for. I believe one of the biggest reasons blogs have caught on like they have is because they are so personal (how could a site called “Big Pink Cookie” not be personal?). I read that recently and wish I could remember where it was. Oh well. Yay for blogs and the blogosphere.
P.S. Believe by Josh Groban from the Polar Express sountrack is a good song.
I just visited Down The Avenue for the first time today. Can I just say how happy I was to read her post Swingin’ Again? And no, that’s not because she “swings” like that, which I don’t think she does. :) That wouldn’t make me happy. This is swing dancing we’re talking about here.
when you close your eyes and listen ‘to the music,’ the moves are irrelevant because rhythm overtakes you. It swallows you. You become it. It becomes you. You’re no more alive than when you reach this plateau.
I couldn’t have said it better myself! I enjoy all the styles of swing dancing I’ve tried, but Lindy Hop is by far my favorite. The reason for that being the music. The Lindy Hop music (Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, George Gee, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Louis Prima, etc.) does something to me. Or rather, it swallows me. I become it. It becomes me. :) Renee, if you’re reading this, don’t wait another 5 years to go dancing again! If I happen to be around San Francisco this time next year I’ll make sure to get a few ’swing outs’ with you for your birthday jam!
By posting this item I run the risk of a local swing dancer reading this, laughing at me, and then telling everyone else. Oh well.
After becoming single again, I decided it was time I started to get to know more girls. One thing about me though: outside of dances and other social events where meeting people is expected, I am terrible at walking up to a girl and introducing myself… let alone ask for her phone number. So I came up with a plan. Well, my plan still only works at dances, but it works! Someday I’ll have enough guts to get a phone number outside of dances. :-P Not that it matters a whole lot since I dance at least 3 days a week.
It’s not like I need to say it again, but I’m going to. I love swing dancing. I started in February of this year. I’ve learned a lot from a number of great instructors. Still however, no matter how much I learn I always feel like I end up doing the same moves over and over again, boring the girls. One of my favorite things to do is to watch people dance and try to pick up on their groovy moves! Video clips are really good for this because I can rewind and re-watch them over and over! Sometimes though, the clips or the people dancing are just too fast to get a good grip on how the move works.
So the point of this post is to tell you about a cool new site I discovered recently! www.how2dance.com has really good beginner to advanced videos clips. The clips on there currently are for Lindy Hop swing dancing as well as Balboa.
In case this post sounds like a shameless plug, it isn’t. how2dance.com isn’t my site. I do know the guy though (but that’s not why I’m posting about it)! Check it out! http://www.how2dance.com/
So whether you swing dance or not I’d suggest checking out some of these sites! If you don’t know anything yet it’s a good way to jump right in before actually going to a dance. If you do know how already, well, you can never know enough cool moves! Enjoy!
Many of my friends, and I’m sure several others don’t understand a certain concept: I dance because I love to dance and I love the music.
A lot of people, most probably, dance to meet members of the opposite sex. So when people learn that I go dancing at every possible opportunity it blows their minds. Seriously, if I could go swing dancing every day, I would. Of course, meeting girls is an extremely nice benefit. If only guys went swing dancing I obviously wouldn’t go. Girls, however, aren’t the only reason I go.
This post comes from the frustration I’ve felt from friends and others who don’t understand a few things. 1) How I can go dancing so much, and 2) How is it that people who are dating someone steadily or are married can dance with other people.
On Saturday, I met a bunch of friends at the University of Utah and we drove up to Logan, Utah to go dancing (1 1/2 hour drive). On the way home we were talking about a move seen in a clip where two guys are dancing together. The driver of the vehicle commented on the fact that the swing community is so much fun because you can do stuff like that and people just laugh. Guys dance with guys, girls dance with girls, married people dance with other people… and it’s all NORMAL! In almost any other group of people this would all appear really wrong. Now, I must add that when guys dance with other guys it’s all in pure fun. They’re not gay. No one is actually doing that because they enjoy it more. :-P
One of the passengers in the car didn’t understand the concept of being married or dating someone steadily and dancing with other people. He said that if he were dating someone or married he wouldn’t dance with anyone but her.
That’s perfectly fine! I don’t have a problem with anyone feeling that way. I’d just like to clarify why certain people don’t feel that way. It’s not because those married couples don’t love each other or don’t like to dance with each other. It’s because they dance for completely different reasons than some of my friends. Many of my friends dance, it seems, to meet girls and have fun with girls. Myself, and most others highly involved in the swing scene dance because we love the dance and we love the music. It doesn’t matter who we dance with as long as they’re good at it and have a style we like. We even like to dance with those that aren’t good as long as that person is trying to learn. I dance with people who are married or dating someone exclusively all the time. When I had a girlfriend we still danced with other people. It’s not dancing-for-marriage. It’s dancing-for-fun. I’ll admit that if I knew some guy was gay I would feel uncomfortable dancing with him. Just for the record, I am terrible at following (following is “the girls part”). I can’t follow worth crap.
I was talking to my mom about this and I was actually surprised she understood how I feel about it. She then explained why she understood. It’s because that’s how it used to be! The whole “your my date or wife and I’m going to dance with you and no one else because if I danced with anyone else that would be seen as something wrong” is relatively new. A lot of that is probably because the way our culture has changed. Or rather, the type of dances that people go to. 30+ years ago (or however long ago it was) the dances were more innocent, if you know what I mean. I believe that’s one of the main reasons that swing dancing has stayed the way it used to be. A lot more innocent. I’m sure other forms of dance are the same way… ballroom, some latin dances, etc. As long as it’s clean and people are dancing because it’s fun and not just to meet people then people are fine with dancing with those whom they’re not dating or married to.
I’d like to re-state/clarify one last thing before I end. I swing dance because it’s fun and I like the music. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t like the girls! It’s funny to dance with guys every once in a blue moon, but the girls are what make it worth it! Girls are fun! I like girls!
Does this make sense? What do you think? Please leave your comments!
As you may already know, I am addicted to swing dancing. However, I’ve only been at it since February of this year and have sooooo much to learn. Swing dancing is one of those things you can just keep learning forever and ever without knowing it all. Then again I think pretty much everything is that way. Anyway… I just came across this movie clip. It’s my dream to be this good someday. I’m awestruck.
What’s more fun than dancing all night? Dancing all day and all night! Saturday was probably one of the best dancing days I’ve ever had. Unfortunately though, I didn’t get to dance all day, but I did get to dance some of it! And then a lot of the night as well. On saturday Kevin and Carla came from California to BYU to do some swing workshops. I only made it to one of the workshops, but it was worth it! After the workshop, I went to a dollar theater and watched A Cinderella Story, then to a friend’s house to eat, and then to the dance! I wish I could remember who the live band was. It was a ton of fun! I wish it hadn’t ended! :-D
In case you’re wondering if I liked the movie, yes, I did. I heard some of the reviews weren’t that favorable of it, but it really doesn’t take much for me to like a movie. I personally think movie critics have seen way too many movies to really be good judges of what is good and what isn’t. I have liked so many movies that received terrible ratings (I’m easy to please, what can I say?). For example, “A Cinderella Story is too predictable.” “It’s the same old story.” “Why isn’t there an original plot?” um… maybe that’s because it’s a Cinderella story. Duh. What did you expect? There are some new plot twists to it, but overall it’s just a modern Cinderella story. Surprise surprise. :) Wow, I wrote more about this than I did about the dance.
I went to the Utah State Fair today. Why? So I could swing dance of course! They had a band there playing big band music. Forget the pigs, the cows, the fine art, and the T-Mobile booths (there were tons)! I came to swing dance! Okay, so the fine art and photography stuff was really cool too, but it had to wait until the dancing was over. I love it.
Also, a new version of Real Passwords will be released within the next few days. Stay tuned!
On a forum I visited recently I came across these questions:
What got you into swing dancing?
Why are you still swinging?
To answer these questions I’m gonna take a step a bit further back to give you a little bit of background into my life of dancing.
Back in the days of high school and church dances I was one of the best dancers ever. People would acknowledge my dancing abilities by pointing fingers at me and laughing hysterically. My friends would show their amazement by pretending they didn’t know me. That was on fast songs anyway. To the slow, more romantic songs like the timeless Lady in Red I was only as good as most everyone else. In other words, I’d put my hands around the girls waist and spin circles like a mad man. That is, if I could get a girl to dance with me after my performance on the fast songs. Since I was such a good dancer they were obviously too nervous to dance with me and would run when they saw me coming. After Lady in Red was over the DJ might put on something like Boot Skootin’ Boogy, which I dislike strongly and continue to loathe to this day. Don’t worry, people that like that song can still be my friends. As long as they don’t try to make me dance to it. I’ll admit I tried to follow the crazy line dance a few times. I like to think of those moments as being “under the influence”. Under the influence of some pretty girl, that is. Then, the DJ became my friend again. He’d play another groovy fast song to which I could act like I was having convulsions. Then it would happen, a swing song! Of course, since all the girls knew I was such a good dancer they would all flock towards me hoping to get my hand. I would run. You can’t dance with 300 girls at the same time so I opted not dance at all. INTERPRETATION: It was time to get a drink of water and stand around and feel stupid. I couldn’t swing dance to save my life. I was jealous. I wanted to learn. Did I ever make an effort? Nope. Some friends and one of my sisters tried to get me to learn. I made some half-hearted attempts, but nothing serious (like the term “half-hearted” suggests). Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make much sense. I wanted to learn, but didn’t even try.
In February of this year (2004) I met an awesome girl. She had started swing dancing only a few months earlier. Her and her friend started teaching my friend and I. I loved it. I got addicted. I’m still dancing because I love it! If I don’t go at least twice a week I feel empty inside. :)
I think all I needed the whole time was a little motivation (a beautiful girl willing to help and teach me several times a week, not sporadically). And in case you’re wondering, if the girl left me now I’d still dance. I don’t dance for her. I dance because of her.
Posted by Ryan
January 9, 2008 
Well I did it! I finally got my film developed. Long ago I said I’d try to post a picture a week. Since I haven’t done that I figure this should make up for it, right? Right? Okay, no it doesn’t. It’s still good though.
