[lindyhop]

Tuesday night I wanted to go to an Intermediate/Advanced Balboa class but I managed to leave my shoes at home. Even leaving them on the doorknob so I can't miss them didn't work. I'll try again next week or maybe just wait for the next series in May.

I went to Atomic Ballroom in Irvine last night to dance. They get a good crowd of dancers every Friday night. I'm still working on being a regular there so I spend a little too much time watching but there were a couple of highlights. I always want to dance with the "pros" and last night I got to dance with Ben who (I think) teaches in the Pasadena area. (I also think he's behind the website Geek Swing where I got my <lindyhop> t-shirt.) The great thing about dancing with someone like Ben is that he pays attention to the level you're dancing at but also pushes a little to see what you can do. The bottom line is he makes you look good. Later I danced with just the opposite type of dancer. This guy kept leading sudden changes in direction (that I followed damn well, thank you) and made me feel like I was just keeping up, not dancing.

And I got to dance some Balboa with Ray (one of the best at Bal). And I followed him a few times like I was dancing in another dimension. He clearly led in one direction and I took off in the other, I don't know why.

Back to reminiscing about early dance experience, I'd nearly forgotten a modern dance class I took as part of P.E. in high school. I sucked at everything in P.E. but I loved this class. We split into teams of about four people and choreographed a dance that we performed for the rest of the class. Our team danced to the theme from Peter Gunn and we really got into it and outshone everyone else. I should have paid more attention to how good that felt and not waited so many years to get back to dancing.