I have catholic tastes in music,
I love ska, early 80’s Goth, classical overtures, musical theatre and Buddhist
chants. All of these have the added advantage of being easy to dance around to.
Yes including classical: have you never marched like a monster to Peer Gynt or
swung around the room to Liszt? No? your loss! Buddhist chants you can slowly move from side to side to, mind you the same could be said of most sounds.
However some of the other music I
love such as 20’s dance music, big band sounds and fifties R & B pose a
dilemma. They are difficult to dance to, you need a partner, you need to
actually learn to dance and you have to know how to dance! Quite apart from
this there are personal factors, are you fit? Do you have any
aptitude at all?
This post is for those like me.
The ones who have the co-ordination of a drunken bumblebee, who have to hold
their left hand up to see that the thumb and forefinger form an ‘L’ just to
confirm that it is actually left, those who are single and feel guilty at
inflicting their cumbersomeness on some poor stranger and those who cannot
actually move their hands and feet, at the same time, in any meaningful way. Is this you? If so welcome to the
club. No doubt you have spent years like me, propping up the bar watching
shimmying slippery eels of couples bounce sway and hop their way around each
other . Very entertaining, but you do feel left out and let’s face it: dead
jealous.
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Sitting out the dance... |
Finding myself single and with a
bit more time on my hands I finally determined that even if was a bit rubbish this was
becoming a bit ridiculous and I determined to have a go. You cannot go through life only doing things you are naturally good at. At the very least I might
master a couple of the group dances. At worst I would at least know that I
really can’t dance but have had a bit of exercise. At best I might even enjoy
myself. The next question was what to
learn? For my money Salsa and Ceroc have an element of being 'a good place to
meet the opposite sex' about them, something that is not my priority. I had attempted Lindy Hop in the past but it hadn’t worked at all.
Perhaps because the class was too big and I kept on having to sit it out due to lack of leads. In retrospect Lindy did not seem to be at all
simple, a bit fussy and I was simply bad at it. So I settled, because I am particularly fond
of fifties music, on Jive.
The question next was where to go?
there are a plethora of classes out there. Location is important, after a day
at work travelling across London and back is a trial and exhausting to boot.
The risk is that after a particularly hard day it would be too easy to just
back out and head home for a plate of pasta in front of The One Show. I also
determined to do a small set of classes for beginners and pay up front in order to encourage me to keep on going. Finally
and perhaps most usefully I went with my similarly dance phobic friend Ed
(thanks Ed!).
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Telegraph Jive. |
I took five short classes at
Telegraph Jive, it was held upstairs in a pub in an area which was easy for me
to get home from at night and was taught by two people I know and like: David
and Kezia .It was a small class
with friendly people and a relaxed enthusiastic approach. Predictably I did not emerge as a natural dancer and would gripe and grump during the sessions. I also had to deal
with a minor operation which resulted in one lesson where, rather than twirling
I was staggering around like an inebriated Tinkerbell! Having persevered though I was much better after
this very short course than when I started but perhaps more usefully it removed
some of ‘the fear’. Most pertinently I occasionally even started to enjoy it.
So for a beginner in South London I cannot recommend these classes highly
enough. The pub was quite nice too.
So where does that leave me? Well
my friend and I went to
Hula Boogie which was great fun, but involved little
dancing as I was a bit cowed by the quality of the people there, entirely my fault. I would always
recommend Hula Boogie as a good night out with cheap cocktails to anyone
though, dancer or not and will pop along again next month.
Diamond Jive classes
and nights are also held in my local area, I tried their drop in class last
Monday and although I’m not really up to scratch at all the people there were
friendly and I like the teacher: Frankie. So I hope to get to make it to more of these.
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Bit mystified by the legs here... |
Will I ever be able to jive
properly? Who knows? It might take, I might be able to try other types of
dance, or not. On the other hand it is actually enjoyable and seems to be a
scene where most people just want to enjoy themselves and the music. Even this
non-dancer has picked up a certain tendency towards aloofness and up-themselvesness in some dancers/scenes.
One of my problems has always
been that I often look like I can dance, my soft spot for wide trousers,
bandanas, red lippy and retro frocks signals a capability that is absent. It is worth pointing out that many of us spend our time in a dance rich environment, it comes with the territory. At
least if some brave man asks me to dance now at one of the many dance rich events I attend I can
point out that I am a beginner but actually get up and have a go; when you are
a ‘can’t dance, won’t dance’ person that is real progress. So my advice to my fellow ‘two left feeters’
is to give it a try, it can't hurt. xxx