Dancing: it's a great way to get exercise, socialize, and meet people! Plus, it's basically a real-time strategy game with a rhythm component.
I didn't want to muck up the Internet dating thread nor any of the let's-get-fit threads nor hobbies threads, even though dancing kind of has a bit of all three aspects, in varying degrees for different people.
It's been a long time since I've been dancing. But last week, an unlikely new friend took me Salsa dancing. I hate Salsa dancing, but I had such a blast that it rekindled the old dancing spark for me, and I'm trying to ride the momentum as much as possible.
It occurred to me when I went to Lindy in the Park last weekend, when someone asked me how long I'd been dancing, that it's been about 13 years, on and off. That is a dang long time! I remember how excited I used to be about going out dancing when I had just graduated, and sometimes I wonder how I could have let something that was so meaningful to me slip away.
A while back, Rimbo and I were talking to someone about whether dancing is inherently intimate. You know, because of the touching, and the music. In the conversation, I said that no, it isn't -- especially not in a class setting where you are learning a step along with a dozen other people, and especially not when the follows rotate around a circle of leads so you are only really spending a few minutes with any particular person. Social dancing is a little different because you spend a whole song with the same person (depending on local social norms, you could be spending a couple songs). You may be touching, but -- and I generalize here from my own experiences -- that's not the point: the point is the real-time strategy rhythm game. The point is to see what cool and pretty things you can do with your body, and how your body works together with your partner's body and with the music. I took a class as a lead the other day (I am a gal and I typically follow) to see if the social dynamic was any different, and found that indeed it wasn't.* In my experience there is startlingly little flirtation or attraction during lessons and social dancing. I guess because your mind is occupied. All that said, I suppose it depends on the dance: I have heard some terrible things about the gentlemen at certain Salsa clubs that have less than wholesome designs on their follows. But who knows? maybe it's mutual.**
I'd like to meet other dancers here. I'd like to motivate, and be motivated, by dance stories. So, let me have 'em! Who here dances?
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Footnotes:
* Except that I don't know what to say to girls or how to act around girls, but I guess that's common and comes with practice.
** That isn't to say that dancing is always platonic. It doesn't have to be.
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Originally Posted by fire
