Being Happy

Without getting too philosophical, I believe it is every human’s right, goal, and reason for living to be as happy as possible. And yes, I also believe that includes helping others, but one can’t assist anyone else if the well is dry, so to speak. Being happy obviously means you must know what brings you joy. Duh. But I think you also have to be aware of what doesn’t.

Gary and I have taken that very seriously with our dancing, which must sometimes drive our dance instructor Melissa crazy, although as you know from many previous posts she has risen to the challenge. We have chosen not to follow any prescribed dance course, deciding instead to follow our own hearts.

The downside to that is there are, and I’m not kidding, probably a million dances from which to choose. The odds are good that we may try some we don’t like. Sometimes that can be a big disappointment.

Take the shag. Don’t you just love that name? And it’s a beach dance…the shag is danced regionally in southern coasts on open-air dance floors, soft island breezes playing through one’s hair while sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas…sigh. OK, so maybe I’m romancing it a bit, but I had such hopes for the Carolina Shag. Gary too. We’ve tried to like it; we took a class in it last year during the 2008 Moving Across The River dance workshops, and also this year.

But we just didn’t feel it.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very cool dance, sort of swing/river dance shuffle mix. We saw many many examples of expert shaggers over the weekend. I love some of the fancy footwork and pretzel-like turns. And then we had a revelation. Why not take some of those moves and put them into a swing we DO like? I mean really. If we can put samba and cha-cha moves into our West Coast Swing, surely we can add a bit of shag in there.

So that’s what we’re going to do. We learned something called a shag belly roll which sounds creepy but in truth is a wonderful face to face intricate step. It’s a definite toe-smash risk, but so worth it. And, if we ever do go to one of those romantic beach dance floors we can do our WCS Shag…The Wag, ha ha.

Check out these shaggers: it may not be for Gary and me, but maybe it is for you.

Move Across the River - Part II

Sometimes you set out to do something with the thought, 'yeah, this will be a breeze…'. You expect to be good at it - heck, half the reason you're doing it is just so you have a chance to shine, right? Well, that was me when we set out for Cincinnati Bop's 16th Annual Move Across the River this past Friday. The plan was to take an Arkansas Street Swing class on Friday morning, dance during the afternoon, just hang on Friday night, take a St. Louis Imperial Swing class Saturday morning, then a Carolina Shag class, and maybe dance a little in the afternoon before heading home. A full schedule, but since we expected to nail the dance sessions and didn't expect too much from the classes - no sweat, right? Let me tell you, this was a wakeup call.

First off let me say that Move Across the River is a heck of an event and that it draws members from 44 clubs across the Midwest and Southeast. There were groups from Pittsburg, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, the Carolinas, and even as far away as Florida. The Drawbridge Inn in Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky was full with boppers, shaggers, swingers, and dancers of every stripe - let me tell you it was an interesting feeling not being the only one walking down a hotel hallway with a bag of dance shoes slung over my shoulder! Kind of nice, really.

Secondly, I'll point out that there were about twenty people attending this year's event who'd been to every single one…that's sixteen straight years of attending ONE dance event. The level of experience around us was greater than just about any event we've attended thus far in our young dance careers. And what's more these people had skill! I've witnessed some good dancing but this was the smoothest WC swinging and the sultriest shag-dancing that I've ever encountered on any dance floor. Even guys nearly twice my age were getting down…it made me feel downright decrepit!

The good news is we learned a routine in the Arkansas Street Swing that we'll be perfecting and working into our other swings and we nearly picked up a routine in the St. Louis Imperial Swing that we'll be able to adapt too. The bad news, my beloved Carolina Shag isn't the dance I thought it was - it's geared for those with creaky knees judging from what the teachers showed us. Still I'm sure we'll invest a little time in learning to shag - after all you've got to have something to do to slow triple-swing tempo music and a fellow can only do so many WC swings in a row before getting really bored.

The down side of the event? I've never been in a dancehall that allowed smoking until this weekend. Sure, bars cater to smokers as well as non-smokers…but hotel ballrooms? The ones I've been in here in Indy are almost all non-smoking venues. Not so much for the Drawbridge. In fact, I don't know if I've been in a hotel with more smoking - they even had a cigarette machine in the lobby, something I haven't seen in ten years. The net result for me was a minor headache almost throughout the event. Still, I guess it could have been worse!

We also wound up dancing Friday night - something we hadn't planned on doing. It was an experience - two hours of dancing during the day along with an hour and a half lesson then another two hours of dancing at night. Then up early to check out before our first lesson - and five more hours of class. Tomorrow we're at the Indiana Roof for an evening of ballroom dancing…oh my aching knees!

Move Across the River '08 - Part I

Tomorrow we're off on another dance excursion. This time it's not far - just to Cincinnati where we'll be attending Cincinnati Bop Club's Move Across the River '08. We're not members of Cinci Bop, what caught my attention was the chance to take lessons in some fairly obscure types of swing dance: The Shag, The Imperial Swing, and the Arkansas Street Swing.

It's a funny thing about the way dance developed after the 40's. Music got faster, fewer people danced, until (after the disco gluttony of the 70's) nearly all the dance halls closed their doors or were converted into some less savory second life. When you start to learn swing today you're taught that there are two types: East and West Coast and if you dig around long enough you'll eventually discover Lindy Hop. The thing is, in reality swing was as eclectic as the culture of the states of the union. In the southeast The Shag was the swing of choice while in the mid-south you had dances like the Arkansas Street Swing and the Imperial Swing (with roots in the St. Louis area).

Back near the beginning of this blog you'll remember we went to a bunch of Lindy Hop classes in Iowa. It was a great experience and I took home a lesson (in addition to a few ideas for steps). That lesson was this: Don't expect to learn a whole dance in a two day conference. You probably say 'duh' but yeah, some part of me expected to come home from Iowa knowing how to Lindy. I'm not going to Cincinnati with the same misconception! The hope is to steal a couple of Shag, Street Swing, and Imperial moves so that we can work them into our triple EC and our Lindy Hop.

Pictures and a report on the proceedings will be forthcoming Saturday evening - so stay tuned!