Adventures in Swing Dancing

Last night, my roommate and I went to swing dancing class. I saw a girl from my English class last semester. She happens to be the roommate of my roommate's friend. Once again: "It's a small world after all."

Anyway, the first step we learned was the rock step. It's easy enough. The rock steps later transitioned into inside and outside turns in both open and closed positions. After a bit of practice, I had a pretty good mastery of these basic steps.

During practice we rotated partners. There were tall partners and short partners. Fat partners and skinny partners. Stiff partners and spastic partners. For most of them, this was either their first or second time swing dancing.

After class, the floor was opened to free dancing. Guys asked girls and girls asked guys. At first, I danced with some of the guys in my class who were beginners. I felt like I was taking baby steps as the more experienced dancers whizzed, twirled, and hopped across the floor. But, then I was asked to dance by the more experienced dancers. That's when the real fun began.

The first experienced partners I dance with surprised me. My surprise was due to the fact that if you saw any one of them on the street, you would never have guessed that the danced. So when they began to move me around the floor, really feeling all the tones and accents in the music, I was taken aback. I now know what people mean when they say a good partner can make you look good. The better the partner I had, the more advanced steps I was thrown into and the more fun I had. At this point, I was thankful for my sixteen years of ballet training which taught me to pick up and follow steps quickly. All in all I must have danced with at least ten guys, three of which had serious ballroom training. Therefore, it is safe to say that last night I danced with more guys in half an hour than I've danced with at all of the school dances I've ever been to combined!!!

Needless to say, I will be returning to swing dance club in the near future.

Oh, on an entirely different note, that guy from my econ class of whom I spoke in my last post must have been joking with me. I saw him again today in class and he was very nice. After class he asked me for my e-mail so he could befriend me on FB. Additionally, the guy who sits next to him is really nice too. We had a lovely conversation about Florida before class.

I know that was useless info that you probably don't care about, but I thought I'd keep you posted since I previously mentioned it.