Arcane Gazebo

Yes, yes it is.

That's part of why I've been enjoying Salsa much--it's the same idea, built around a different rhythm.

Sorry I failed you as a teacher. :P

I saw a Swing presentation at my high school. The guy in it was a friend of mine, and he looked like he was having the time of his life. He later went on to date the girl I had a crush on.

Since then, I've ever had envy of swing dancers.

Hello! I just started waltz and quickstep last night at Stanford, tryin' to go the gentrified route and all that jazz-er, waltz. The instructor had two of his students there to demonstrate the two dance styles. Both were perhaps four feet tall, and boy oh boy, could they move! Eric and I kept debating whose lunch money we were going to take first...the boy looked more dorky, the girl more snooty...it was really a toss-up.

I love dance so much I cuaght mono to get out of dance lessons with sharon :) But yes watching good swing is cool. Doing good swing is probably cool to by my lack of rhytem makes that virtually impossible.

Lack of rhythm? I think I'd be impressed by anyone who couldn't follow the rhythm of, say, Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing).

Waltz is actually more fun than it looks, but more of a "I'm walking on air" feeling than the "zomg KAPOW!" you get from swing.

Swing is fun, but take a lesson from me and don't wear tight pants and don't drop your partner. At an Aggie Wrangler's swing lesson I more or less simultaneously split the entire crotch of my pants and dropped my future wife. This was about the end of my swing dancing career.

Actually, in my past attempts my lack of rhythm was a big problem. I seem to have remedied it over the years with many hours of DDR/Donkey Konga/Guitar Hero.

Cheryl: Waltz was one of the dances in last semester's set; I had some phase noise problems with that one. Fortunately that's less of an issue with swing.

...I understand the phase noise bit. I had that with a few of my partners last night, followed immediately by someone stepping on someone else's foot. Generally, I was doing the stepping - not good.

Waltz feels just a tad weird for that "looking left and makign sure you have a haughty sneer on your face" bit. Swing is much more fun and relaxed. Nonetheless, I do enjoy the idea of wafting over the floor with Eric - whether or not we actually get to that point. :)

Congratulations. And I'm not surprised about DDR helping, though I've found that, after being a dedicated player for 3 years, I haven't been on a machine again since I took up swing, salsa, and blues. Be careful not to get sucked to deeply into involved though, if you're short on time -- short of blowing out a knee doing something stupid, once you turn to the Lindy Side, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Yeah, it's clear that what I don't need right now is one more time sink...

I could think of a certian type of time sync that might do you some good...

Shellock: In that respect, dancing has some marginal advantages over the other ways I allocate my spare time.