Portland Swing Dance Club

Jenni and I signed up at the Tualatin Recreation Center for a full-year access to their swim center this past March. As her pregnancy continues, water-walking has become our regular exercise. We are currently taking a pregnancy class, learning about the Bradley Method, where the husband has the role of a coach during labor. One of the best encouragements for Jenni to do her exercises is for me to do them with her. So I join her for her water-walking excursions.

There have been a few visits where I tried to learn how to swim from Jenni. She had been a lifeguard and swim instructor before her illness. Though I have not progressed very far, trying to learn how to swim has been very beneficial to me. Most times, I feel like a lead brick that sinks. I kick my legs and I go one meter—backwards. Simply put, I feel like a klutz. And my fat doesn’t float.

From trying to learn how to swim, I’ve thought about what it was like to learn how to dance. Every time Jennilyn described how my legs should do a ripple starting at my hip, I remembered the time I was determined to learn how to do body ripples for west coast swing. As she described how to have my legs and arms work together, I felt the awkwardness that came with coordinating two actions with two body parts at same time.

Learning how to swim also reminded me how difficult it is to learn west coast swing. We have to learn the rhythm, figure out where our “center” is, and not worry about where our feet needs to go. I did not truly enjoy west coast swing until I felt comfortable with the basics.

I am very fortunate that there is a swing club in Portland to help me grow. One of the great things about our swing club is variety. For competitive routine dancers, they are normally get better by practicing with a dedicated partner. For me as a social dancer, competitive and non-competitive, I learned more by dancing with varying skill levels, not just those better than me.

I remember a time when I would make it a goal to dance with more advanced follows. Being shy and overthinking every opportunity, I would wait patiently until the follow was free and a good song came up. I would often have a mediocre dance. It was rarely the fault of my follow. As I tried with different advanced follows, the dances were sometimes fun and great, but what usually happened was the follow did a lot of syncopations on her own or musicality in her own body. I wanted the dance with an advanced follow to make me be advanced as well. Sometimes I would mistakenly put the responsibility of my fun at the other end of the connection.

For a time, when I went to dance conventions, I would get in line to dance with the professionals. I would dance late in the early hours so that I could get the opportunity to dance with the likes of Tatiana Mollmann or Mary Ann Nuñez. In hindsight, I was too fixated on thinking that dancing with someone better makes for a better dance. I can definitely learn from dancing with them, but I’ve learned a lot more at conventions where I had more opportunities for social dancing with people from all around. I become a better social dancer by dancing with a larger variety of partners rather than dancing with just the people I admired as advanced dancers.

I’m sure it’s different for follows, as dancing with advanced leads allows them to experience new patterns and learn new adaptations. But ask an advanced follow what type of leader they prefer, and I’m certain that most would prefer a leader who took care of them than a leader who tried all their craziest moves. For me, it isn’t about dancing with the best dancer on the floor; it is helping my partner to be their best on the dance floor.