Dance with me, pretty boy, tonight?
I regularly blather on here about dancing with swords. What I mention a bit less frequently is that I also go to modern jive classes with some regularity.
On Sunday, at the 80s night in Whitby, mrph and I were briefly discussing general jive and swing dancing (which I thought he'd taken up a while ago, but it seems not - or he was keeping very quiet). And it made me think: hey, the world would be a much better place if more people could break out in jiving occasionally.
Assuming everyone conforms to traditional gender roles, this is why you should try it:
Girls - you can have a great time and look fabulous even if you know nowt just by dancing with a competent guy. Also, once you've learned to follow (and in jive, that's pretty easy) then you're streets ahead for picking up any other form of partner dancing.
Guys - you will always be in demand, because classes are always a bit short on guys. Also, once you're willing to actually take on the odd bit of dancing here and there, (at least a certain subset of) women will think you're brilliant at parties.
One notable caveat: jiving (and very possibly any similar form of freestyle dancing where the guy leads) is way harder to learn if you're a guy. Girls basically go where they're pushed and don't have to do any thinking. I can do a bit of basic dancing as a man and it's much more difficult to move, think ahead to what you're going to do next, try to remember which hand you're going to need to start with, try to fit to the music, and try not to look like your brain will flick out your ears any minute. If you are a couple going to classes together, be aware that whoever is leading will learn much, much slower. (When I used to help teach a beginner class a few years ago, I constantly had to try and convince women that their husbands weren't just wilfully stupid.)
It's not all bad, though. Joining in a class and learning new stuff isn't difficult, and in a few weeks you'll end up with enough moves to do a bit of basic freestyling if you want to. All classes I've ever been to are run such that you can turn up by yourself and join in straight away.
Jiving does obviously require some degree of physical fitness, but in general less than you'd think. I've also known people say "no, no, I'm hopelessly mal-coordinated" but then be fine. So, unless the idea of dancing fills you with horror or you have serious fitness or mobility issues, give it a whirl.
I was first introduced to modern jive by wimble, probably (eek!) 15 years or so ago. Having been going intermittently to classes all that time, you'd think I'd be better at it :) At present, I think I'm actually learning most from dancing with a bunch of different people. Wimble and I have been dancing together such a long time that I don't need to concentrate; he's a strong leader, but also I'm very used to his leading and to his style of dancing. We're also quite capable of dancing, arsing around and holding a conversation all at the same time (although possibly we shouldn't). Still, it's a lot of fun.
Mind you, it will do bad things to your taste in music. Historically, when a whole bunch of us used to go mob-handed to the Cowley class, one of my favourite tracks to dance to was Man! I Feel Like a Woman, something which I feel I would have disparaged violently in any other cirumstances. Recent equivalents are Moves Like Jagger, and Usher's More. Actually, the class I usually go to plays a weird, massively slowed-down acoustic version of More that I've not yet found online because - breaking news! - it's fine to jive to slow music. Done well it can even look graceful and elegant and sexy (unless you're dancing with me, because I will probably be arsing about).
Are there any other practitioners of jive/Ceroc/swing/lindy/that sort of thing around these parts? If so, please confess in the comments... I wanna dance with you!
On Sunday, at the 80s night in Whitby, mrph and I were briefly discussing general jive and swing dancing (which I thought he'd taken up a while ago, but it seems not - or he was keeping very quiet). And it made me think: hey, the world would be a much better place if more people could break out in jiving occasionally.
Assuming everyone conforms to traditional gender roles, this is why you should try it:
Girls - you can have a great time and look fabulous even if you know nowt just by dancing with a competent guy. Also, once you've learned to follow (and in jive, that's pretty easy) then you're streets ahead for picking up any other form of partner dancing.
Guys - you will always be in demand, because classes are always a bit short on guys. Also, once you're willing to actually take on the odd bit of dancing here and there, (at least a certain subset of) women will think you're brilliant at parties.
One notable caveat: jiving (and very possibly any similar form of freestyle dancing where the guy leads) is way harder to learn if you're a guy. Girls basically go where they're pushed and don't have to do any thinking. I can do a bit of basic dancing as a man and it's much more difficult to move, think ahead to what you're going to do next, try to remember which hand you're going to need to start with, try to fit to the music, and try not to look like your brain will flick out your ears any minute. If you are a couple going to classes together, be aware that whoever is leading will learn much, much slower. (When I used to help teach a beginner class a few years ago, I constantly had to try and convince women that their husbands weren't just wilfully stupid.)
It's not all bad, though. Joining in a class and learning new stuff isn't difficult, and in a few weeks you'll end up with enough moves to do a bit of basic freestyling if you want to. All classes I've ever been to are run such that you can turn up by yourself and join in straight away.
Jiving does obviously require some degree of physical fitness, but in general less than you'd think. I've also known people say "no, no, I'm hopelessly mal-coordinated" but then be fine. So, unless the idea of dancing fills you with horror or you have serious fitness or mobility issues, give it a whirl.
I was first introduced to modern jive by wimble, probably (eek!) 15 years or so ago. Having been going intermittently to classes all that time, you'd think I'd be better at it :) At present, I think I'm actually learning most from dancing with a bunch of different people. Wimble and I have been dancing together such a long time that I don't need to concentrate; he's a strong leader, but also I'm very used to his leading and to his style of dancing. We're also quite capable of dancing, arsing around and holding a conversation all at the same time (although possibly we shouldn't). Still, it's a lot of fun.
Mind you, it will do bad things to your taste in music. Historically, when a whole bunch of us used to go mob-handed to the Cowley class, one of my favourite tracks to dance to was Man! I Feel Like a Woman, something which I feel I would have disparaged violently in any other cirumstances. Recent equivalents are Moves Like Jagger, and Usher's More. Actually, the class I usually go to plays a weird, massively slowed-down acoustic version of More that I've not yet found online because - breaking news! - it's fine to jive to slow music. Done well it can even look graceful and elegant and sexy (unless you're dancing with me, because I will probably be arsing about).
Are there any other practitioners of jive/Ceroc/swing/lindy/that sort of thing around these parts? If so, please confess in the comments... I wanna dance with you!