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!