So I went to a tango class

I have a friend from a different city who has gotten really into Argentine Tango over the last year or so, and every so often we nerd out about dancing. Tango has always sounded fun to me, and I happened to be in town this weekend, so I thought I'd give it a try.

re: Plight of Lindy Hop Followers

So, over at Rhythmic Rambling back in December, Rachel wrote of followers slogging through learning/skill plateaus:

Suddenly, after dancing for 6 months or a year, followers realize that they’re pretty much relearning how to do everything in order to dance with well with others.

She talks about how it can be more frustrating/ego-crushing for followers than leaders at this point (a year or so in) partially because the leaders get a lot of the ego-crushing "you know nothing" out of the way early. Whereas it is reasonably straightforward to be able to effect a basic level of following, which people can often pick up very quickly, so at the beginning, followers' egos have an easier time.

I totally agree with her, especially since I went through this you-know-nothing-relearning HARD in about that time frame in my dancing, and feel like I repeat it cyclically. I would like to add another thought to this discussion, also, that I talked about with one of the instructors at a recent weekend. I had booked a private lesson, and when they asked if I had specific questions or goals for the session, the answer was no, because...

DAYTON SWING SMACKDOWN!

omg, y'all. smackdown.

This past weekend was *amazing,* the culmination of months of really hard work for all the teams in the form of a team performances in front of so many of our friends and family, down in Dayton, OH. Fact: it is scarier to perform in front of friends than strangers.

Big shoutout to Josh Forbes for organizing the weekend- Smackdown is Josh's baby. ::sniff:: and it's getting so big now! Gonna start kindergarden next year.

For those that don't know, Dayton Swing Smackdown is two competitions rolled into one; both city/regional and college teams compete. And two rankings are tabulated, overall and collegiate. Collegiate teams can win overall, but non-college-student teams cannot, obviously, win the collegiate division.

All of the teams brought it hardcore, but I am just bursting at the seams with pride for the Columbus teams. Cbus brought home both trophies- the OSU Jitterbucks took the Collegiate Cup despite fierce competition from Miami University, Ohio University, and University of Dayton teams. And Team SwingColumbus took first overall out of 6 entries, the college teams plus two teams from Lexington, KY.

So, videos! (Thanks to Dave Martin of Columbus for the videography, videos below the jump.)

Talking about dance on the internet...

is frustrating.  You can say something, but whether or not the other person understands the kinesthetic impression you're trying to convey with your puny, inadequate words... who knows? So in honor of a conversation I had with a friend this morning, I made this:

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/35yk9d/

Applies to many cases/topics of trying to have a discussion/argument online.

Blues comps at lindy events and cross-competition

So there was a very active thread recently on Bug's Question of the day, about

Why don't more blues dancers go to events like ILHC and Lone Star to compete in the blues divisions? Why don't the lindy hoppers who compete in the blues divisions at ILHC and Lone Star come to Blues events and compete?

I pretty thoroughly regret* having jumped into the fray the way I did, but tangents about specific events aside, if I may take the liberty of synthesizing some of the answers, there seemed to be some consensus that, beyond the overlapping-but-not-identical pool of competitors, competitions at blues-specific events ("blues comps") and "blues" OR "slow" comps at lindy events (often used interchangeably even if labeled one way or the other) have different judging outcomes because the two communities value different things. One of the specific things that the blue community values is a particular blues aesthetic. Little to no value is placed on a blues aesthetic at an unspecific "slow" competitions.

In counter to that, some people were all like "what does that even mean?"

A happy coincidence (in which I westie to country music.)

So our local weekly swing dance is at a country bar. Because they have a lot of line dancing and country dancing, they have a real dance floor, which is pretty sweet.  Also they have half priced burgers and beers before 9 on Wednesdays, which just happens to be our local swing night.  This is also pretty sweet.  The happy hour special was in place before Wednesday became swing dance night, but they've kept it in place despite the now-much-larger crowd that's in there mid-week.  By whatever alchemy, our group and this venue have hit a sweet spot, where the dancers buy a lot of food and drinks, and we get to have a weekly venue at a bar and not a studio, and it has a real dance floor.  And the venue management likes having us there.  Win all around.

But the bar does have a crowd of regulars, and it's in a not-unpopular area of town, pretty near campus, so there's always a steady subpopulation on Wednesday nights that's not there for the swing dancing.

Last night, a couple of instructors from a local dance studio randomly walked into the bar to have a beer, near when our music was ending, though they danced to the tail end of it. After the swing music ended, the bartender put the country music back on, and played a song at my request:

Dance goals in 2012

So, just recently saw a facebook post about "what are your dance goals in 2012?" which was quickly deleted, so I didn't end up posting there, but I figure this definitely fits in the category of "what my blog is for."

So without further ado, cla dance goals 2012: