Dance with me, pretty boy, tonight?

[venta]

I regularly blather on here about dancing with swords. What I mention a bit less frequently is that I also go to modern jive classes with some regularity.

On Sunday, at the 80s night in Whitby, mrph and I were briefly discussing general jive and swing dancing (which I thought he'd taken up a while ago, but it seems not - or he was keeping very quiet). And it made me think: hey, the world would be a much better place if more people could break out in jiving occasionally.

Assuming everyone conforms to traditional gender roles, this is why you should try it:

Girls - you can have a great time and look fabulous even if you know nowt just by dancing with a competent guy. Also, once you've learned to follow (and in jive, that's pretty easy) then you're streets ahead for picking up any other form of partner dancing.

Guys - you will always be in demand, because classes are always a bit short on guys. Also, once you're willing to actually take on the odd bit of dancing here and there, (at least a certain subset of) women will think you're brilliant at parties.

One notable caveat: jiving (and very possibly any similar form of freestyle dancing where the guy leads) is way harder to learn if you're a guy. Girls basically go where they're pushed and don't have to do any thinking. I can do a bit of basic dancing as a man and it's much more difficult to move, think ahead to what you're going to do next, try to remember which hand you're going to need to start with, try to fit to the music, and try not to look like your brain will flick out your ears any minute. If you are a couple going to classes together, be aware that whoever is leading will learn much, much slower. (When I used to help teach a beginner class a few years ago, I constantly had to try and convince women that their husbands weren't just wilfully stupid.)

It's not all bad, though. Joining in a class and learning new stuff isn't difficult, and in a few weeks you'll end up with enough moves to do a bit of basic freestyling if you want to. All classes I've ever been to are run such that you can turn up by yourself and join in straight away.

Jiving does obviously require some degree of physical fitness, but in general less than you'd think. I've also known people say "no, no, I'm hopelessly mal-coordinated" but then be fine. So, unless the idea of dancing fills you with horror or you have serious fitness or mobility issues, give it a whirl.

I was first introduced to modern jive by wimble, probably (eek!) 15 years or so ago. Having been going intermittently to classes all that time, you'd think I'd be better at it :) At present, I think I'm actually learning most from dancing with a bunch of different people. Wimble and I have been dancing together such a long time that I don't need to concentrate; he's a strong leader, but also I'm very used to his leading and to his style of dancing. We're also quite capable of dancing, arsing around and holding a conversation all at the same time (although possibly we shouldn't). Still, it's a lot of fun.

Mind you, it will do bad things to your taste in music. Historically, when a whole bunch of us used to go mob-handed to the Cowley class, one of my favourite tracks to dance to was Man! I Feel Like a Woman, something which I feel I would have disparaged violently in any other cirumstances. Recent equivalents are Moves Like Jagger, and Usher's More. Actually, the class I usually go to plays a weird, massively slowed-down acoustic version of More that I've not yet found online because - breaking news! - it's fine to jive to slow music. Done well it can even look graceful and elegant and sexy (unless you're dancing with me, because I will probably be arsing about).

Are there any other practitioners of jive/Ceroc/swing/lindy/that sort of thing around these parts? If so, please confess in the comments... I wanna dance with you!

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Pull Shapes! :-D

[venta.livejournal.com]

What do you do when the music stops?

You get a kudo, that's what :)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

What do you do when the music stops?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Is it any good?

I bought the first volume of Phonogram (because really, who wouldn't want Luke Haines as a spirit guide?) and decided it was genius, decent and dreadful in various parts. I must try and retrieve it from the friend I lent it to some years ago...

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

What do you do when the music stops?
(First attempt was marked as spam. Trying again...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think you're human, so I've marked the comments as unspammy :)

Comments seem to get marked as spam if they contain only a link (sometimes) - dunno about this one.

[taimatsu]

I had the same reaction :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

At the last class I frequented before I moved away from Oxford, I actually got them to add Pull Shapes to the regular freestyle playlist, which was ace :)

[lnr]

Mike and I went to dancing classes for a year - ballroom and latin so we learnt quite a bit of waltz and cha cha cha, a bit of jive, and odds and ends of a few other things. I think the fact it's that much harder for men probably does factor into why I was keener on it than him and why it didn't suit us (as a couple) in the long run. We never did really get to the point of him learning to actually *lead* and me to *follow* because basically the class ended up memorising a couple of routines in each dance style, and as often as not it was me remembering what came next and leading it from the women's side!

However I *was* interested to learn in a ceilidh the other day - in a rather unusually slow dancing which involved waltzing sections - that if I'm dancing with someone who *can* lead a waltz I can do a reasonably good approximation of following it, and I really enjoyed that. I would love to give ceroc classes a try as that looks entertainingly social and seems to translate well to weddings discos once you know what you're doing - but I do find that with two evening classes a week (pilates and my slimming class) I already feel a bit overwhelmed even though both are straight after work. A ceroc class starting later just seems somehow daunting :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I guess it's much more complicated if you're learning lots of different styles at once. Even though I make a very bad man (as it were) I'm still forced to lead properly, because even if I only know three moves you can tag jive moves together in almost any order so you don't know which of my three moves is coming next.

The idea of the girl "back-leading" does come up in classes a lot, when the girl knows the move but the guy does not. It's pretty useful, because feeling how it's supposed to go is way more helpful than hearing a description. It is kind of important to stop doing it too, though :)

seems to translate well to weddings

I feel it should! And it's ok for a bloke, who can just grab someone willing and dive on in. Unfortunately, if you're a girl, you pretty much need to find yourself a bloke who knows what he's up to, and there's no internationally recognised signal! I have jived at weddings and such by being a man, though I really do need to get more practice in if I'm ever going to be competent.

Evenings: I know what you mean. There just aren't enough to go round :(

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

there's no internationally recognised signal

Maybe this is something that should be worked on. I'm sure wimble could come up with something suitable…

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've occasionally wondered about the idea of a small badge :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of something more like a Bat-signal, but as you wish :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That would mean that, on hearing a good intro, I could start by saying "Alfred, break out the jive-bat".

Which would be a good thing.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Me, a bit - I did jive a few years ago and I intermittently go to swing classes but I'm really out of practice and don't have the confidence for social dancing yet!

I suck at following. I find it very hard to 'read' what my partner wants me to do, and I'm not naturally very good at doing what I'm told anyway.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I reckon ease-of-following is massively dependent on the quality of the lead anyway - if in doubt, blame the leader.

How are you feeling today?

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I can definitely feel the difference between a confident lead and a not-so-confident one - there used to be a few more 'advanced' guys who would go along to the beginners' classes to help even up the numbers, and dancing with them was always a joy as they made more firm contact and signalled their moves better.

Still feeling a bit rubbish - went into work a bit late as I needed to wait for the cold and flu capsules to kick in so I could stop hacking my lungs up. Feeling a bit better now but still coughing a lot and feeling feverish.

[taimatsu]

I have recently started going to swing classes as a follow - I'd like to learn to lead too.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think it is actually trickier to learn to lead if you're female - as well as all the lead-specific problems that anyone has, some people you ask to dance will have the "and why are you even doing this?" reaction if you're not superb.

However... I still wouldn't take on a complicated class, but I tend to swap to leading if beginners' classes are really short on blokes. I don't think there's any reason not to start learning to lead straight away - except in my case I'd prefer to follow anyway :)

[rapperaddict.livejournal.com]

I used to do ceroc (but because I was short and, at the time, light, people spent more time doing various throws with me rather than actual other dance moves) I did learn some of the figures from the male side (i often end up dancing as a man. i think it's it's cause i just don't object enough) but I found it really difficult in ceroc due to the fact that a lot of the figures really only work if you're the same height or if the leading dancer is taller. Don't know if jive is similar.
You're definitely right in that it's the kind of dancing that's fine in venues devoted to it but only really useful in the world outside if you're male or dancing as a man.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I used to dance a lot with narenek, who actually had trouble because he was so much taller than almost all his partners. He basically had to jive in a permanent rapper-style knee-bend. Dancing when the guy is shorter is possible but yes, not desperately convenient.

Ceroc is more or less indistinguishable from the sort of jiving I do.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

I did ceroc classes for a few months but it was fairly hard: the jump from "here's 6 basic moves" for the first 30 minutes or so, to "now string all of them together into a long complicated routine" for the second was just too far for me. And then the freeform at the end was a bit daunting: you were either limited to the 3 moves you had got down pat that evening, boring those who were more advanced. Or you were wrestling with a beginner who was just as shakey as you were.

Scottish Reeling was more my thing. Fixed moves so you know what you're doing (and if you don't everyone else does, so they can point/guide/push/whisper when you cock things up), but with enough flexibility that you can show off (doubling, fancier/faster spins, etc.) when you know the basics.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Gosh, hello, not seen you around these parts in ages! How are you and your fambly?

I've never quite grasped exactly what Scottish Reeling involves. Is it what I'd file as English ceilidh dancing, only Scottish?

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

I think Celidh is scottish as well (thus the spelling). Main difference betwene Scottish country dancing (aka reeling) and ceilidhs is the formers a bit trickier (i.e. hard to do while drunk), often requires an exact number of people (typically 8) more formal and you're meant to know what to do given a particular dance name (except at teaching events, obviously). While the latter is more informal, often done while drunk and you usually have a chap telling you each move as you dance it.

There's probably complicated theoretical stuff like "one's 3/4 time and the other 4/4" or similar but that's beyond me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I thought ceilidh was Irish, hence the spelling :) Though I realise such things can be ill-defined. Certainly Irish hoolies tend to expect you to know the dances, rather than being issued with instructions. And Irish set dances don't really repeat, either, which makes them harder to pick up as you go along.

If the dance is actually a reel then it'll be 4/4... but then you get loads of reel-time dances at an English barn-dance, as well :)