So a lot of you already know that my brother has been teaching me how to swing dance for a while now. According to him, I'm a really good follow, and my vocabulary (the set of dance moves that I know how to do) is growing a lot. Swing dancing is a lot of fun because you get to be really silly while you do it, and there's a lot of spinning involved; spinning makes me happy. It also makes me dizzy but that's another story.
There's this place in Seattle called "The Century Ballroom" and they do a lot of stuff with swing dancing. On Sunday nights, they have this thing called the "Social Dance" and it's where anyone can come to dance. It's a really good time; two instructors do a beginners lesson at the start of every Social so that the people who are coming for the first time can get to know a few basics before everything really kicks off.
But, before the Social, they also have more advanced classes. Right now, they're doing Lindy classes. Lindy is the sort of swing dancing that my brother has taught me. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. But, luckily, I don't need to know for my story to be told. Yay! All you guys really need to know is that there's four levels of Lindy currently being taught: Lindy 1, Lindy 2, Lindy 3, and (you guessed it!) Lindy 4. Now I think you guys have all the background you need for me to actually tell my story.
My brother, sister and I went out shopping yesterday, hoping to see a friend that lives in a suburb of Seattle. Alas, that didn't happen but we still went shopping. Sometime during our shopping, he asked me if I wanted to be back at Century for Lindy 2 or Lindy 3. Well, I was nervous about Lindy 3 because I haven't ever taken a class at Century, and I don't know my skill level in comparison to the other people who would be in the class. So I said, "Maybe let's go to Lindy 2 as warm up so I can feel more prepared for Lindy 3." And that was our plan, until my brother had great success at shopping. Then we knew we weren't going to get back in time to go to all of Lindy 2, and playing catch-up is hard. So, by default, we ended up just going to Lindy 3.
Surprisingly, I actually did really well. And it was a lot of fun. Although, I do feel bad for leads in dance classes when everyone is learning new things. Follows have it a little easier because leads tell their follow what to do, which means that the lead has to know what to do for two people in order for a move to work. There was a guy named Graham (I'm not promising that I spelled it correctly), and he was a really good dancer and a really good lead. (Yes, there's a difference.) Also, he was cute and liked to make silly faces so we got along pretty well. When the class wrapped up, I was really proud of myself because I felt like I'd held my own in my first class, which was an advanced class no less.
Then, before my brother and I went to the Social, we went to Walgreens for water and gum. During the little walk, my brother and I talked about the leads. (He'd danced as a follow because the ratio of leads to follows was lead heavy.) Stuff like, "He was good but he didn't have the right tension in his hands when he wanted me to go somewhere." Swing dancing is pretty technical when you get down to it. But the lovely awkward moment of the night happened when we were checking out. I was saying something along the lines of, "He seemed nervous; like maybe it was his first time." And I can't remember what I was going to say after that because I was so surprised at how the conversation I was having could completely be misinterpreted. So I said, "And I'm trying to figure out a way I can say this next thing without outside observers getting really confused when they hear a comment out of context." And the cashier was like, "Yeah, I thought you guys were talking about a virgin or something." Completely hilarious and slightly embarrassing but also fantastic.
The Social was pretty good. I mean, tons of people dancing and looking slightly silly has got to be a good time. But it was different from the last time that I was at Century. The last time I was there, the room was completely packed, and almost everyone was on their feet--either dancing or waiting to be asked. However, this time, a lot more people were sitting down. Yes, I understand that maybe a person just danced seven songs and is tired but there just seemed to be so, so, so many people not really participating in the dancing. It made me a little sad. But I did get to dance with one of the instructors, who was super good, so that was really good. The night was even topped off by the guy who held the door for us on our way out. When I thanked him, he said, "Of course."
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