West Coast Swing!
Tuesday, February 24th, 2004 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanaleh
After several months of "We really must go dancing sometime," ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tenore and I went last night to Downtown Swing at Ned Devine's (at Faneuil Hall). I was only slightly underenthusiastic due to never having learned any West Coast Swing before, but we made sure to go in time for the very beginner lesson at 6:30. And stayed (mostly on our feet) until almost 10:15.
And OMG, was it fun! It's a while since I learned any completely new dance, and spent long enough at it in one sitting to start feeling like I was getting the hang of it. (Nor had I done any serious partner dancing since, well, since jonathanjo.) I'd almost forgotten just how exhilarating it is for me. Insofar as I made any New Year's resolutions this year, "do more dancing" was high on the mental list, but this seems to be the first I've actually gone. Note to self: Do more dancing. I swear I tell myself every week I'm going to try to make it to contras, either MIT or VFW... and then (just because the option is always there) there always seems to be something more immediate going on. If I would just make it a point to go, it would probably do more for me than any other three hours in my week.
The interesting thing is -- I was noticing while we were working the basic steps in the early part of the evening -- not every minute of the process is at the "whee!" level of fun and enjoyment... but I do find all of it completely absorbing, and completely satisfying. Oddly, this observation reminded me of the first time I read The Mists of Avalon, the summer after seventh grade when my awesome humanities teacher lent it to me. When I brought it back to her in the fall, she asked "Did you like it?", and I seem to recall saying that I hadn't so much consciously liked it as been completely drawn into it. Which of course meant I *had* liked it, not that I didn't; but there was something more fundamental to it than simple aesthetic enjoyment. I didn't know how to express the distinction. I apparently still don't. Is there a term for this? Apart from "flow state"?
tenore and I went last night to Downtown Swing at Ned Devine's (at Faneuil Hall). I was only slightly underenthusiastic due to never having learned any West Coast Swing before, but we made sure to go in time for the very beginner lesson at 6:30. And stayed (mostly on our feet) until almost 10:15. And OMG, was it fun! It's a while since I learned any completely new dance, and spent long enough at it in one sitting to start feeling like I was getting the hang of it. (Nor had I done any serious partner dancing since, well, since jonathanjo.) I'd almost forgotten just how exhilarating it is for me. Insofar as I made any New Year's resolutions this year, "do more dancing" was high on the mental list, but this seems to be the first I've actually gone. Note to self: Do more dancing. I swear I tell myself every week I'm going to try to make it to contras, either MIT or VFW... and then (just because the option is always there) there always seems to be something more immediate going on. If I would just make it a point to go, it would probably do more for me than any other three hours in my week.
The interesting thing is -- I was noticing while we were working the basic steps in the early part of the evening -- not every minute of the process is at the "whee!" level of fun and enjoyment... but I do find all of it completely absorbing, and completely satisfying. Oddly, this observation reminded me of the first time I read The Mists of Avalon, the summer after seventh grade when my awesome humanities teacher lent it to me. When I brought it back to her in the fall, she asked "Did you like it?", and I seem to recall saying that I hadn't so much consciously liked it as been completely drawn into it. Which of course meant I *had* liked it, not that I didn't; but there was something more fundamental to it than simple aesthetic enjoyment. I didn't know how to express the distinction. I apparently still don't. Is there a term for this? Apart from "flow state"?