Dancing Fever!

This weekend was full of dancing and home depot visits. I'll save the home deport stories for another time. I will tell you about the dancing, oh what dancing! We danced and danced and danced! The dance studio where we take classes has a dance on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month and this past Saturday was just one of those occasions. From 8-9, there is a dance lesson in a specific type of dance, and then from 9-11 is the dance. This past Saturday Sling Hustle was taught. Since we've taken that class and we've practiced enough that we haven't forgotten it, we skipped the class and showed up at 9 for the dance. We got there a little early and joined in the last few minutes of the class. Through the night we hustled, we cha-cha'd, we rumba'd, we swung (both single and triple) and ended the night with the manhattan hustle. Most people were gone by then and Kurt and I were the only ones on the floor. So far, the Manhattan Hustle is my favorite. I think its cause we know the most moves in it. Needless to say, we had a blast.

Then Sunday we took an Argentine Tango workshop. I've never had the desire to learn the tango (american or argentine), but Kurt was pretty interested in checking this out. We'd seen a couple dancing it a few months ago at one of the dances and it did look pretty damn cool. I always thought the tango was a little contrived, but that's probably due to the choreography of them in movies. The Argentine Tango was a lot of fun. Its the closest dancing position of any dance - you're right up against your partner. This was a bit tough since the top of my head barely reaches Kurt's shoulder. When the dance instructor was going around to each couple while we were practicing the basic tango walk, she demonstrated how I should stand in relation to Kurt - with my head on his chest. It beats looking at his shirt the whole time! We learned how to do the "tango walk", a turn, how to do a "flare" or "fan," and a grapevine. I hope they offer a class in Argentine Tango at some point, we'd be up for that.

Tonight starts the next 8-week set of dance classes. Tonight begins intermediate cha-cha/rumba (first 4 weeks cha-cha, second 4 weeks rumba). And on wednesday is beginner salsa.

One of the things I have learned with all this dancing is how to dance with other people. And how to be that close to another person who isn't Kurt. I am not comfortable being touched by other people - don't ask me why as I have no idea, I just know there have been a few occasions which have brought this to my attention. Usually a coworker putting a hand on my shoulder, or when an old roommate linked arms with me. It just always weirded me out. For the most part, I've only danced with Kurt, but occasionally the dance teachers like to switch the partners up so you get to see how leading/following styles differ. When we first started dancing, it was a little weird, but I've gotten used to it and rarely feel uncomfortable anymore. I'm always a little uncomfortable dancing with men who are my height or close to my height. I'm used to Kurt towering above me. There's also the men who just can't lead to save their lives. Or the know-it-all ones. There was this one guy who I thought had been taking lessons for a while until I danced with him and it was clear he hadn't. He was a decent lead, but not as great as he thought. And at the risk of increasing Mr. Swim's dancing ego, I always try to get him as a partner whenever we have to do the round robin switch ups. He's a good lead and is similar to Kurt in that he actually leads and doesn't only repeat the step or pattern that we've just learned but mixes it up. This is another interesting thing I've noticed about dancing, I cannot think or I'll screw up. If I start thinking about what I'm doing, I'll try to anticipate the next step, and 90% of the time I anticipate wrong. When we first started learning the tango steps, I found it easier to close my eyes. If I was looking around, I'd either get distracted watching other people or I'd try to use visual clues and end up getting off-step or off-balance. Oh, my, I've rambled on long enough about dancing. That's all for now.