After three relatively low key, mostly stay at home days, with short walks to local shops, I wandered further afield today. 

I had taken the day off. A morning meeting in town. My afternoon ‘social’ meeting got cancelled, which actually worked well for me. It meant I could eat at home, do some work, rest up a bit and watch more Netflix. At night, I went for Swing class, which I’ve missed. 

They had guest teachers in, Blues teachers from a different venue. So we had 1.5 hours of Blues class, then we went to the usual Blues venue for some live music and social dancing. I have done Swing for a few months now, and had tried different Swing classes, so have gotten a sense of the different steps / moves, and teaching styles. 

But I had never tried Blues because there is only one main venue which teaches Blues, and it clashes with my ‘home’ venue. Furthermore, a girl I know who does Blues says that it is a much more intimate dance, with much more close contact than Lindy Hop, hence I was even warier of trying it. On the other hand, another girl I know who does Blues says she likes Blues better than Lindy because the follow in Blues has much more creative freedom, independence and freedom of expression compared to Lindy, which kind of intrigued me. And today, the way the teachers explained Blues dancing also seemed to validate that point, with them saying that the lead and follow negotiate their groove, and the follow can choose to follow the lead or not.

Anyway, it was a really interesting class. On one hand, I found the close contact quite alarming and uncomfortable – and I didn’t end up doing it with a majority of my Swing leads, except the few who were quite assertive and went ahead with it. On the other hand, I liked that the basic step was so simple that there was so much more room for creative freedom and choice as a follow. I had a chat with a few people about which they preferred, and I guess most Lindy Hoppers preferred Lindy Hop, which I suppose is natural enough. Mostly they liked the energy and bounce of Lindy, and found Blues too slow.

When we went to Blues social, and I got the opportunity to dance with ‘real’ Blues dancers, it was really obvious how much better and more creative the Blues dancers were, at least in Blues. I certainly enjoyed myself more with them. With the Lindy dancers that I knew from my location, there was mostly the familiarity of dancing with people I’ve known and danced with for a while, which makes it ‘easier’ and also enjoyable in some ways. But I definitely enjoyed myself more with the experienced Blues dancers. There was a guy, new to both Lindy and Blues – he had only attended one of each lesson before – who seemed nice enough. He asked me to dance several times, and I was happy enough to oblige… but OH… it was SO dull dancing with him! He really needs to take more lessons and / or dance with more people! And weirdly enough, I think he actually danced better with some other follows, from what I could observe. Maybe they were better at inspiring him. And I still always enjoy dancing with my performance ball dance partner. He’s my go to person when I just want to have a relaxing and enjoyable social dance.

Swing is kind of interesting – I meet all sorts. One of my teachers works for the Met as her day job, and the other, is a French-Singaporean who works in interior design. The new guy, was a teenage dad (he had his first kid at 19) and has 4 boys ages ranging from 6 to 19 (seriously?!). My performance ball partner is apparently a Classicist (wow, really?!!). Another Lindy Hopper is a classical oboist for several orchestras, and also works in mental health and some kind of management job. And at least two of the Lindy Hoppers are university students, or maybe recent graduates. The Blues dancers are even more left field! At least two are gender-fluid, or at least of indeterminate gender / gender identity. And more than with Lindy, more Blues men seem to also follow, not just lead.

It was a nice, if slightly surreal kind of day. 

My morning meeting was about reviewing Annual reports, minutes, and hearing about share price performance and sector trends, largely with ex-City types who are mostly older, well educated, and pretty intellectual. 

Afternoon I listened in to our Town Hall at work, where my CEO had to explain why we have been making cost cuts to a nervous and demoralised, but also entitled, workforce. Slacked my boss a bit, who I’m really thinking is slightly out of his depth, but good enough at being aggressive and bullish I suppose. And then the rest of the afternoon was relatively quiet housework and ‘The Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ on Netflix.

And evening was dancing, and meeting and chatting with a really diverse group of people, who I would never usually encounter, about the relative merits, enjoyment, and nuances of Lindy vs Blues.

A sampling platter of a day…!