Baking, dancing, riding, not all at once

It’s great that we don’t need a regular partner to learn dance with and the people in class are awesome, but sometimes its just nice to have that special someone with you. Especially for the close and quiet stuff like blues. Cue guilt-trip in Loz’s direction!

I conned him into a blues class once. Showed him some videos on YouTube, played lots of blues music on the stereo until he finally warmed to it and agreed to attend one class with me. In my hasty excitement, I even bought him a dance class discount card but Oh NO, the folly!

That one class we did was a mistake on so many levels. The guest teachers spent more time talking about blues than teaching it, so it didn’t appeal to his short attention span. It was a full hour of learning to sway and pulse from side to side in one spot. Not even the chance to hold so many lovely lasses was enough to turn him into a repeat customer.

So I shall have to dance on without the pleasure of the Mr’s company. There’s not much I can do to convince him. He thinks Lindy and Charleston are daggy, balboa is boring, ballroom is too stuffy, salsa’s beyond his hip rotation abilities and hip hop’s for wankers. Blues has JUST enough introverted coolness and this-is-me-and-my-woman machismo to look like he’s not trying too hard.

Plus I try not to push  him. Leisure is meant to be just that, not a pressure or a chore. He knows how important it is to me and how delighted I am when he comes along (I wonder what gives that away, the manic squealing, perhaps?) but it’d be pretty unfair to inspire any guilt. Guilt-trips are so easy to lapse in to, learned that only too well from my family, heh.

If only he’d come along last night, anyway.  It must be about 2 months since I last did blues and I remember why I love it so much. The world disappeared for a good 2 hours in a series of mini-conversations with each new partner. And we did a lot more than just bob from side to side like manic semi-lit penguins.

I also forget how tiring it gets as well, mentally taxing. I concentrate more during blues than other dances and invest a lot more of myself than I realise, emotionally. I come out of a blues night feeling lost, yet found. The real world around me is suspended in agar jelly while my thoughts roll on to a quiet 12-bar murmur.

On a side note, I’d love to go to Adelaide for Church City Blues next month, but it won’t fit into the budget, I don’t think. Maybe next year.