2013/08/31

Why Swing Dance?

About a year and a half ago, I was introduced to Swing Dance. I loved it! Since then I’ve tried to describe what makes swing dance so great, but nothing online describes it well. This article came close, but I needed to add more. I wish I could write the ultimate piece on swing dance, and someday I hope to write a book on it (or at least an ebook!), but for now, consider this draft one of my epic tome. Thus said, let us commence.

At the beginning of last summer, one of my best friends, Ryan, invited me to go with him downtown one Tuesday night. Back then, I was lucky enough to live in Grand Rapids, the swing dance place to be. What I miss the most about Grand Rapids is that Tuesday nights find hundreds of people gathering at Rosa Parks Circle for swing dance. There we met up with a few friends, and then met all sorts of people I knew but would never have expected to be interested in swing. As the weeks progressed I met tons more people. Reason number one to try it: swing dance brings together people who would otherwise not know each other. A shared experience in a non-threatening environment draws people together.


Swing dance is also a great way to get to know someone. You are forced to get to know their strengths and weaknesses. Earn their trust and learn to trust them. I’ve made friends through hanging out at a swing dance event, and I’ve gotten to know friends better by dancing with them. Plus, swing is a cool conversation-starter. I get so excited when my friends get interested in swing, so I can connect people I know from one area of life (or one city) with people I know from another.


I never really pictured myself as a dancer until I started swinging. What sets it apart is that it is a microcosm of real life in its focus on gender roles. The image of the man leading and the woman following intrigued me. This doesn’t mean that the woman is lesser: on the contrary, the man must serve the woman--because leading isn’t easy. I can’t tell you how hard it is to lead with strength, while still being gentle. (That takes communication.) My usual partner, Claire, was especially rigid when she first started dancing; she didn’t trust anyone. Months later, she has loosened up and she trusts me. Another girl I have danced with knows more swing than I do, so it was a struggle for her to submit to my leadership. It also taught me that sometimes, when I don’t know what I’m doing, my partner is an excellent resource: leading and having the final decision doesn’t mean I discount her input. Yet another life lesson learned through the microcosm of swing dance.


One thing I can’t stand is when girls dance with girls (don’t get me started on guys dancing with guys...). I know more girls than guys who swing, so my friend Ryan and I have made it our life goal to teach more guys swing dance. In the past year, we have introduced many guys to the wonder of swing. We have encouraged them to step out of passivity and lead, and it’s really fun to watch. When we teach a guy swing, we tell him all he needs to do is lead and be a “platform” for his partner: we joke that the guy does nothing, the girl makes him look good. When we teach a girl swing, we tell her all she has to do is be lead-able and to feel beautiful. These lessons we teach in swing bleed into real life.


What’s so beautiful about swing dance is that it is not an individual sport. It takes teamwork and coordination. I can’t do awesome moves all on my own, and neither can my partner. What’s beautiful about a relationship is that two individual people bring themselves when they come together, and they create something entirely new in the middle. It takes a long time and lots of mistakes to learn to dance with a new partner, but I find that going through the process of failure and finally figuring out what works and how to communicate is the fun part. Executing flawless moves isn’t as awesome without the hard work to get there. Like in real life, learning to work through issues with a friend, especially one of the opposite gender, is an important life skill. It’s cool to get to the point where communication doesn’t have to be verbal. As I said before, you can get to know people through dance.


According to a friend of mine, the most important thing about swing dance is communication and teamwork. But without a basis of trust, communication can’t happen. It took many weeks of proving myself trustworthy with the little things before Claire would let me flip her. And now, months later, she trusts me so much she asks to be flipped and taught new flips! This also mirrors our relationship in real life: trust takes a long time to build, but once you have it, it’s an amazing thing to have. Yes, sometimes I don’t pull through or do what she expected, just like in real life. But trusting someone doesn’t always mean that you believe they are going to do the right thing, but that you trust that they are trying to do the right thing. If I ever dropped Claire, she wouldn’t stop trusting me because she (hopefully) sees that my heart is in the right place. When we started dancing, I had to communicate out loud, but now we can sometimes communicate sub-verbally.


It’s not easy trying to look like you know what you’re doing so you don’t embarrass your partner. After all, 90% of leadership is pretending you know exactly what you’re doing. So many times I’ve been frozen with the thought, “What do I do next??” There’s a mini-battle going on inside about my adequacy. (It’s really fun to dance with a girl who is amazing: although it makes me question my adequacy, she also makes me look like I know what I’m doing.) But swing dance is a reminder that the girl isn’t just a doll for me to lead around. She is a person. Neither is she a goddess I try to appease. With swing dance, we are made equal as persons: we mess up, but we can laugh about it. We are a team.


Another thing that makes swing dance so great is how my friends and I use it to honor each other. It’s an appropriate activity to do with friends of the opposite gender. I can ask any girl to dance without feeling that people are assuming that I have any “romantic feelings” for her. And especially for “touchy” people, it is an appropriate context to learn from touch; too often  our culture says that the touch love language is bad, but this is not the case. However, my friends and I avoid teaching swing moves that are inappropriate. Now, this isn’t true all the way across the board, but our group has chosen to create an atmosphere in which we honor our friends. It honors a girl when I respect her enough to take the initiative to ask her to dance. I feel honored when she accepts the offer.


Yet another great thing about swing dance is that you can always learn more. If you don’t know what swing dance is, it is like a pearl necklace: you string together a bunch of moves. There is always someone around who knows moves I don’t that I can learn from. Swing is not a static hobby: there is always another level I can move to. Because of this, there is not a line between the “experts” and the “newbies”: everyone is still learning. There is an environment of sharing. I often hear, “Do you know the ___ move?”


Something you’ll quickly learn after starting swing is that it is both physically and emotionally draining. You’ll feel your muscles hurting for the next five days. Flipping a girl is great exercise. Coordinating movements takes precision. Being strong and gentle so the girl can feel beautiful takes hard work. But it’s worth it. After swinging, you may find yourself emotionally drained. It takes effort for the guy to initiate and the girl to accept initiation because it’s not our natural bent. But just like in “real life”, hard work is worth it.


A great reason to learn swing dance is that it is an art form. Just as much as paint or words or notes work together to create a work of art, dance moves are a work of art. Excellence can be pursued. I only just began learning, so I have a ways to go. Watching people who know what they’re doing is really fun. This leads into my final reason why swing dance is a great hobby...

It is fun. For how much hard work it is, it truly pays off. It costs time investment, but it's a really enjoyable use of time with friends. Plus, it’s cool to be able to tell people that one of my hobbies is swing dance. There is nothing else I can say about this point: you’ll just have to try it out for yourself to see what I mean! Now that I’ve rambled on about 10 things that are cool about swing dance, I hope that if nothing else, you have caught my passion and vision for this. If you swing and have something to add, or if you don’t swing and caught my passion, I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below!

Dancing is magic
Now a single unit, teamwork
I shout: watch out world!

3 comments:

  1. That was beautiful. I like the way you write when you are passionate about something. Where would one learn to swing dance?

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  2. wow. That was amazing! and it gives a whole new perspective on swing!! Now I want to go dance!

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  3. Thank you. If one would like to learn swing dance, one could possibly find like-minded people. Some friends and I have been thinking about organizing another swing dance event (we had one back in May in place of Prom). We are still in the planning stage, trying to figure out where to have it. The last one was so fun, to be able to hang out with friends, learn from some, and be able to teach others. Passion is infectious!

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