Thursday, March 08, 2007 - first Swing class

Started the first class at MelbUni Dancesport. Free promotion class, taught by Tim Oon. Didn't think too much of it yet, although I preferred the music to the Latin class I did on Monday. The main difference was Tim the teacher, who was a lot more charismatic than the other dance teachers, whose names took me a while to remember or even care to know. That says a lot.

I learned the 6-beat kick-land basics.

Met some friends from Wing Chun in Swing. Cool, we could put our well-trained kungfu balance to good use.

Thursday, March 15, 2007 - first time at the CBD and social dancing

Another class at Melbourne Uni Dancesport. Learned the Charleston basics this time, and Swing was quickly becoming my favourite.

K-L told me that there's swing dancing at a club called the CBD down in Melb CBD and they were teaching the 8-beat basics that night, that I should check it out. I thought "Hmm, 8-beat basics - must be for beginners!" and so I went to the CBD for the first time. Learned 6-beat triple steps in the Level 1 class and then 8-beat basics in the Level 2 class (but at the time I thought it's another Level 1 class).

I tried out social dancing for the first time that night. By that stage, I'd learned 6-beat kick-land, Charleston, 6-beat triple steps and Lindy 8-beat basics, and could lead bugger all. My first social dance was with L, whom I met through St Latin & Swing, and who told me that I sucked in the second nicest way possible during & after the dance. Then I found a "victim", who'd never done any dancing before and was just following a friend to the venue. I knew enough moves to lead her! We danced for an hour or so (mostly right in front of the DJ booth, near the teachers'/troupes' corner!) until she got sick of me and I got sick of my clumsy leading. Then I tried dancing with her friend - but this one had 5 years of experience and I froze up.

Oh well, wasn't too disastrous for a first attempt.

From that night onwards, Swing has been an integral part of my life and I've been going to the CBD every week on Thursday night.

April 5, 2007 - leading with words

I went to the CBD as usual, this time with a friend, Robster, visiting from overseas. After the social dances on the first night at the CBD, I'd been gun-shy and had not tried again. This time, with a boost of courage coming from wanting to impress a visitor, I asked a few of K-L's friends - H & J & L - to dance. I had absolutely no idea about their levels (turned out that they were Intermediate/Advanced) but I went about it as if I were the dog on his day. The only problem was that since I had no clue how to lead with my body or arm, I started leading by telling them what moves we were going to do next. It's only funny to me now. :-) The girls must be laughing the heads off at that silly beginner guy.

Saw some smooth moves by C-A, learned that he'd been dancing for 2.5 years & wondered how long it'd take me to get there (now I know - about 9 months).

April 20-22 - Melbourne-Monash Dance Camp

A full weekend of dancing at a camp organized by Melb & Monash Dancesport Clubs. All kinds of dancing, but my friends & I were total beginners at everything so we didn't dance much. Instead, we played soccer, AFL, basket ball and table tennis, and I was glad that I brought a huge backpack of T-shirts for changes.

Learned a cool Jive routine called the Drunken Sailor.

Got eagle-clawed in the left shoulder and tricep by an eccentric advanced Latin follower with a not-so-faint moustache. She just wanted me to stop moving my shoulder forward while doing the Rhumba.

Saw the Shim Sham for the first time, performed by H-D & N-BS. Thought that was the most complicated routine I've ever seen. When I saw the Shorty George and how ridiculous it looked, I knew this was the dance that suits my personality the most, as it doesn't take itself seriously.

As I sat on the bench watching the last dances of the last night, I made a promise to myself that I'd get good at this thing soon, so that I would be able to dance all night until they drag my body out of the dance floor, at the next camp. Turned out that I'd get that messy way before the next one.

After that whole weekend of physical fun, I lost 1kg! Yay!

May 17, 2007 - the Shim Sham!

H-D taught us beginners at MelbUni the Shim Sham in an hour! I could only remember half of it afterwards though. That was my first Swing routine!

May 19, 2007 - Meet The Scene Ball

It was my first big Swing event. I bought a new pinstriped suit with suspenders & a bright yellow in-your-face shirt just for it, and left a big dent on my credit card. Since the Dance Camp, although I promised myself to do more practice in social dancing, I hadn't had the balls to actually do any, so this Meet The Scene was the chance to just man up and do something about it. And I managed to do it! I still sucked, and I lead it wrong half of the time, but I lead it strong! I didn't get any better with my skills, but I finally got my social dancing confidence. I also learned how to improvise for the first time. The moves were rubbish but they sort of worked! I didn't sit down for the entire 6 hours of the ball, and didn't even get to go for a drink until 3 hours later. I looked like I was working hard to solve the water crisis in Victoria with my sweaty yellow shirt, but I had a real ball!

Other highlights of Meet The Scene:

- Seeing Tap Patrol performing Foot Loose. I knew I had to learn it, and I signed up for class the next month.

- My feet were buggered by the end of the night. I needed proper dance shoes.

Meet The Scene marked the end of my Beginners' Hell - a period that everyone goes through when they first try out something new. Mine lasted about 2.5 months. After that, I was still a beginner, but I wasn't in "Hell" anymore. I started to have some confidence in my abilities and knew how to build it up.

Fun times ahead!