Yesterday, I went to a dance social for university students. Many of my friends were there. I felt so loved!
I like these big dance socials because there are so many people to dance with. Our club tends to have smaller ones. There are never many non-beginner boys/leads to partner with so I usually spend the evening teaching beginners some dancing. This is fine — I like teaching. But I also love dancing, even with people (males and females) who do basics and variations on the theme of basic. It gives me a chance to think about my balance, heels and toes, arms and cheesy/deadly serious facial expression 🙂
I remember when I first started social dancing. I felt embarrassed that the boys had to pull me around the floor like a dead weight. But it was also fantastic fun when the more advanced boy was a strong lead. I remember being thrown around in my first social samba. I had the little side steps going, and the ridiculously delayed foot flick-thang and the going in opposite direction slidey action… it was so cool.
So I learned to appreciate the joy a more advanced dancer can bring to a beginner (beginner = first to third time dancer). Being an experienced follow requires you to think of different things, as opposed to being an advanced lead. The advanced lead has to be firm in his or her direction and restrict the repertoire to clear and common steps. As an advanced follow, I pay attention to keeping my weight light, “listening” very carefully for faint leads, encouraging smiles, approval of good moves and reduced ambiguous hip action 🙂 I feel very gratified when the beginner is excited by this new world of dancing.
So, beginners, come up and ask me to dance (or accept when I march towards you to request one). Experienced dancers, pay back the favour of the earlier dancers who condescended to dancing with you! (Intermediates, you are in the perfect position to still enjoy dancing with beginners and being able to learn from advanced dancers.)
As a beginner, I must say that it was quite a fun night, despite me not really knowing how to dance. I could only imagine what it must be like as an advanced dancer having to “deal” with a dancer such as myself. Someday I’ll get my revenge… perhaps we’ll all go rollerblading someday and I’ll use Vera and Joee as spinning tops for my amusement, mwuhahaha!
Daniel Yeow
Hi Joanna! 🙂
Well, Daniel, a little birdie told me that you were undertaking a psychology experiment at the social… I believe that you were dancing with exaggerated confidence and attitude to give the impression to your partner that you were a more experienced dancer than was actually the case! Not a bad scheme, considering latin and street latin is mostly about posturing.
And the results of the experiment?
(I once won a dance competition not on my dancing merit, but by playing up to the judges with a cheeky grin)
Dancing is sexy, Pickle 🙂
Rumba (Latin) is the dance of love, intense and coiled like a spring.
Lambada (Street Latin) is the dance of sex, blatantly physical.
Waltz (Ballroom) is the most romantic, graceful and private.
Now, I don’t mind if my boyfriend does the rumba or lambada with another girl but when it’s the waltz… (sad moue) You’re not allowed to be romantic with another girl!
Joan, I like dancing with beginners too — as long as they’re not cocky and keep trying to correct things that I do (fortunately, there aren’t too many of them)! Joan, speaking of waltzing, I have some great photos to show you from our medal night last semester.
Daniel, we only spun you so much ’cause you’re such a good spinner! I was so shocked when I suggested we do underarm turns, and you beat me around! Trust me — it doesn’t take excessive spinning for me to be “amusing” when rollerblading — I’m terrible at it. I hope you’ll come to more socials, so that eventually I’ll see you as “in context”!
vera