Q is for Quandary

Q is for Quandary...

Yes, life got in the way of my best intentions and I wasn't prepared for the A-Z challenge with all my blogs in a row and scheduled to post on the correct day whether I was paying attention or not.  So, now I am in a quandary as to whether to scramble and try to finish the alphabet before Monday...

Dance of the Day:  Quickstep!

Waltz patterns danced to slow foxtrot timing (slow-quick-quick and slow-quick-quick-slow) very, very fast!  And, it is simply the most fun of all the ballroom dances (in my opinion, of course).

F is for Festival...Dance Festival!

F is for Festival….Dance Festival

United Country Western Dance Festival (UCWDC) to be exact….what FUN! (another F word).

The UCWDC is an international organization which promotes country western dancing by producing dance festivals and competitions (including the annual World Championships of Country Dance) in 20 countries.  The organization advocates country dancing as a social activity for people of all ages and abilities. 

UCWDC festivals are a blast!  Typically they are 3 days and nights of social dancing, workshops with the world’s best country dance instructors, and amazing competitions (sanctioned pro-am, amateur and professional couples, and line dance competitions; social jack ‘n jill contests and “just dance” contests; and with some festivals even ballroom and swing contests).  Take part in a UCWDC festival and I guarantee that you will be foot sore and happily dance exhausted by the end of the weekend…new friends, new dance skills and a renewed desire to dance and dance some more…as soon as the feet recover, that is!

Check out ucwdc.org for more information!  Hope to see you on the dance Floor at a UCWDC dance Festival for dance FUN!

Dance of the Day:  Foxtrot

A smooth progressive partner dance that is usually danced to big band music in 4/4 time.  It is a beautiful, elegant, sophisticated dance that was developed in the 1920’s but became most popular in the 1930’s and remains popular today.  It is dance competitively both in American Smooth and International Standard competitions.  A faster version called Quickstep is danced in International Standard.  A simpler social version often called rhythm foxtrot is the most popular of the foxtrots in a social ballroom setting. 

Why talk about foxtrot (other then it starts with F) below a discussion of Country Western dancing whose flagship dance is the country 2-step?  Well…it turns out the 2-step and rhythm foxtrot are kissin’ cousins….it’s just that one is a city girl and the other is a country boy!  The basic timing of Rhythm foxtrot is slow-slow-quick-quick.  The basic pattern structure of 2-step is quick-quick-slow-slow.  Many of their patterns can be interchanged in the beginning levels of the dances…but 2-step is faster and uses much more open work and turns along with weaving and slingshot patterns in the more advanced levels of the dance.

B is for Balance

B is for Balance

 I used to think that when I wobbled taking an unsure step or leaned a bit too hard on my partner while we danced across the floor, that I had lost my balance and that was a bad thing.  Then I learned that partner dancing, like life, really can’t be accomplished in perfect balance and that the only bad thing about wobbles or leans was that I hadn’t learned how to control gravity yet!

Since dancing is just a controlled fall and getting really good at it means learning to control one’s intended motion as it opposes gravity so that the outcome looks fluid, in sync with one’s partner and the music, and…balanced…then losing your balance isn’t really a bad thing at all….it is a requirement!   And the perception of balance is simply an illusion!  If dance partners were in total balance with each other there would be no dance– only statuesque stillness with beauty perhaps, but no musicality, movement or emotion. 

But wait, isn’t that just like life?  Life’s balance isn’t really standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground, going nowhere and doing nothing.  It is finding harmony and equilibrium between all the things we want and need to do.  Balance is finding a way to do what we want/need to do while making it look calm and easy.

Calm and easy…flying apparently effortlessly across the floor with a dance partner.  Two bodies moving separately yet as one with each other and the music, looking calm and controlled, yet completely off balance and in a continuous love/hate battle with gravity. 

And to all my partners who have had hold up more than their fair share of our partnership in order to support me when I wobbled or leaned too hard,  please forgive me…I was just learning how to lose my balance.

Today’s Dance: Bolero

A slow-tempo Latin dance done to “bolero” music.  There are both Spanish and Cuban forms of the music.  The Spanish being ¾ or waltz timing dating from the late 1700’s, the Cuban being the 4/4 timing version dating from about 1930 that is commonly danced today.  Bolero is danced competitively as one of the American Rhythm dances.  It is an unusual Latin dances in that it requires both the typical Cuban motion but also incorporates rise and fall as found in waltz (homage to it’s Spanish cousin, perhaps?) and contra body movement.  Note that the famous “Ravel’s Bolero” is of the Spanish genre, in ¾ timing, and thus sadly, one can not dance a modern bolero to Bolero!

A is for ASK Me to Dance - PLEASE!

Ask me to dance….PLEASE!

Here I sit, swaying to the music, trying to look casual and smiley & happy to be sitting at the edge, tapping out the rhythm and watching all the real dancers fly around the floor.  Looking hopefully into the face of every man walking my direction and hoping he will ask me.  Pick me.  Ask ME!  Oh PLEASE ASK ME TO DANCE! 

There he goes off to ask a good dancer. And here I sit, careful to follow him only with my eyes not my head, ‘cause that would look too desperate….too close to the truth. 

Oh oh….here comes another one.  Maybe he’ll ask me.  Maybe I’ll be his charity dance tonight.  Who cares, it’s still a dance.  w…w…WHAT? Why, YES, oh YES!  I would love to dance with you.  Thank you for asking.  Um, yes, I am still learning and thank you for putting up with me.  I’m taking classes and trying to learn as fast as I can but it would be easier if more people would dance with beginners like me.  Thank you for being so kind.  Thanks again, for putting up with me.  It was a fun dance (for me at least) and you are a great leader and I hope you will dance with me again sometime….

Oh good…a chair…I love to dance, I LOVE to dance, I love to DANCE…and looking back it is so amazing that I dance nearly every dance now but every now and then it feels so good to sit out a song.  Um…what?  Oh….yes, of course I’ll dance with you!  No, I don’t mind at all if you are a beginner.  We all started as beginners.  I still (painfully) remember being a beginner…I had to BEG for dances.  Of course I’m happy to dance with you, and you and you…and you....  

Ah, now….where was that chair.  Oh dear, someone is sitting in it.  Well…there are other chairs.  But wait.  The guy sitting in that chair looks like he’s new here….like he’s new to dancing….like he wants so desperately to dance but is terrified to scan the crowd for a willing partner to his stuttering timing and unsure leads.  Oh well, so much for chairs…excuse me…yes, hi….are you new here?  Awesome…I’m so glad you are learning to dance!  May I have this dance?  Yes…I know you are a beginner….that’s fine, we all started somewhere and I would really like to dance this dance…with you.

Dance of the Day:  Argentine Tango.

A mythically difficult dance that is often said to be all about musical interpretation and believed to have no basic structure.  It was originally danced in the 1880’s in the bars, gambling houses and brothels around the periphery of Buenos Aires as a tool in negotiating the services of ladies of the night.  Tango found its way to Paris in the early 1900s.  Ironically, the scandalous Argentine dance immediately became the Parisian craze.  Then, after being (close) embraced by all of Europe and New York, tango returned to Buenos Aires where it was welcomed as a long lost favorite son and is now one of the country’s top cash crops.  Ah…what’s old is new again!  And it does have a basic structure…really.

Why Don't Men Dance?

Opps…that’s a rather broad generalization that will quickly get me in trouble because some men do dance…for which those of us who dance with them are extremely grateful!  APPLAUSE! APPLAUSE! 

But at every social dance (ballroom, swing, country, salsa, tango – it doesn’t matter) I have ever been to, there are almost always more women dancers than men.

So, more accurately, why don’t the men who don’t dance, dance?

Clearly since I am not a man that doesn’t dance, I don’t have a clue why the men that don’t dance, well…don’t dance…but I have been told a few different reasons (yup…now I am adding hearsay to generalization…the more literary inaccuracies, the merrier)!  And here are my top 5 (along with my unsolicited thoughts in response):

1)      I’ve got two left feet.  (Really?  Fascinating!  Where do you buy your shoes?  And who really knows whether or not the orientation of your feet would actually have any bearing on your ability to dance?)

2)      I wasn’t born with rhythm.  (Neither was anyone else!  Have you ever seen a newborn counting ‘quick, quick, slow, slow’ to the sound of his mother singing a lullaby? Rhythm and timing are learned skills.  Were you born knowing how to throw a football?)

3)      I don’t want to.  (Possibly, but why not?  What is the real reason that you don’t want to dance?  Some good possibilities do come to mind, but they are somewhat unusual.  In what other public situation do you get the opportunity to hold the a woman you may not know for 3 minutes, direct her movements like a puppeteer directs a puppet as you whisk her around the floor, and have her smile, say “thank you” and ask if she may have another when its over?   No….I asked about PUBLIC situations!)

4)      I don’t know how.  (Well, now we are getting somewhere! But I still think there is something missing.  You see, the guy who told me this one had just bluffed his way into a new job that was way above his ability level with a really grand “of course I know how to do that!” attitude about something that he barely know what was, let alone how to do it! Huh?)

5)      Maybe guys can fly.  (If I could fly…ahh but I can’t)

6)      ??????   (I am sure there are many, many more reasons…please drop me a comment and share your thoughts!)

I think the reason that men who don’t dance, don’t dance is that they are afraid. 

I am pretty certain that the one thing that really drives modern man is his fear of looking bad (much different than his ancestors’ fear of being eaten by a saber tooth tiger…back then looking good to the tiger was a very bad thing!).  Even worse, would be his fear of looking bad in front of one or more women.  And, oh dear, worst of all would be his fear of looking bad in front of one or more women that he likes or loves or wants to like or love!

Unfortunately, if we have to admit that no one is born knowing how to dance and that in order to learn we need to go to classes or take lessons, then we are going to have to risk looking bad while we learn to dance.

The good news?  Everyone else in those classes is taking the same risk and struggling with the same fears and concerns.  Dance classes are a very safe place to risk looking bad, so long as they are taught by a good instructor (but more on that some other day).  So…modern men unit!  Be brave!  Make many women happy (that alone should be worth the risk)!  Find a good partner dance class and LEARN TO DANCE!