Ok, so I’ve decided to get back into the dancing hardcore in the last month.
Because:
- I have time and can stay up late a few nights a week because I’m not teaching
- I need to get a bit fitter and healthier, and there is no exercise as physically demanding as lindy hop except perhaps basketball. 20s charleston, however, kicks both their arses for arse kicking
- I missed it – I missed the creativity and the physical challenge and the sheer wonderfulness of jiggling about to music I love with a partner
Things I have noticed:
- I am not 25 any more. My recovery time is kind of long. Today, after dancing like a fool for a few hours (including my first public showing of the Cranky Poo and the bits of the Big Schnapple that I know) last night and then riding home I feel quite rough. I have aches and pains. I have ringing ears (argh, noob DJs: walk the room, doods, walk the room. Decibals won’t replace base). I am tired and look quite awful.
- It’s frickin’ fun. When you’ve got a bit of fitness back and your body awareness and general coordination get back up above the sloth level, dancing is easier, you can do more things and the endorphines… oh, those lovely lovely endorphines.
For the first song you’re kind of clunky. The second, your heart rate gets up a bit, your muscles are warming up nicely and you’re remembering how to dance. Midway through the third it’s like someone’s thrown a bucket of ecstacy over you. Ecstasy made of chocolate. Ecstasy making really fabulous jokes. You start grinning like an idiot, then laughing like a fool. You’re a dancing queen – nothing goes wrong, you rock. You know every single note of the song, your partner is beautiful (and possibly made of chocolate as well). You physically feel frickin’ good – it’s like… I was going to compare it to sex or something sex-like, but it’s not – it’s better. It’s kind of like you get a drumming in your ears. You suddenly want to touch your friends more and squeeze your partner. It’s really nice. - I really don’t give a fuck who I’m dancing with – I’m just happy to be dancing. Because dancing – she is good. She is also the bringer of nice chemical action.
- Music – she is even better. Suddenly all the songs you like listening to have added purpose and meaning. Dancing to them makes them better
- This stuff is addictive. I can see, as someone with no real demands on their time or actual focus, how people do let dancing consume them utterly. How they end up living, breathing dancing in a pretty scary way. Think I’m into dance in a big way? Imagine if I was teaching it. And in a performance troupe. And training for a competition. That’s at least 3 or 4 nights a week on top of social dancing twice a week and the sort of practice you do on your own. That’s insane. When would I have time to watch telly? My conversational skills would deteriorate, my attention span would drop to about 3 minutes max (ie, the time between dances) and I’d suddenly find it difficult to retain basic information about new friends. And those endorphines – did I mention their goodness?
Last night I went to sleep still hearing jazz and with my brain running through dance steps. And this after a couple of hours coming down – riding home for 20 minutes, hassling The Squeeze, reading, eating something, showering.
I like this dancing – she is mighty fine. But she also demands a fairly steep tithe.
Tonight I DJ the second set. And I’m kind of looking forward to sitting down and getting some physical and emotional distance from the dance floor.
