One of my new co-workers started taking swing lessons in Osaka a while back. A friend of hers introduced her to a club where you pay $15, get a token for a free drink, an hour-long beginners lesson and then swing dancing for three hours. Since Phil, Russell's swing-dancing co-worker was in town, I asked my co-worker if she would take him swing dancing with her.
The original plan was for Russell and I to go into Osaka, spend the evening wandering around and then meet up with Phil to go home. As it turned out, though, Russell had forgotten his Japanese conversation was set for Wednesday. Then I found out most of my other co-workers were going to try the place out too, so I decided to tag along.
I took one ballroom dancing class in college and a community salsa dance class with Russell a few years ago, but I've never really danced much.
Post swing reaction? It was a lot of fun! We got some basics from the beginners class, got to practice with a bunch of slow songs in the beginning, were regularly asked to dance by the locals (who were very good about asking everyone to dance) and got to watch some pretty good dancers do their thing.
The only downside was the $4 bottles of water.
I'm definitely hoping to go back. All of us had a good time and we are scheming a swing take over of our school Christmas party this year... gonna take some practicing.
Now I just need to get Russell in on the action. He's currently holding out.
New Dilemma: Swing dancing or Japanese? My Japanese lessons are at the same time as swing dancing. They were cancelled the last two weeks, so I didn't make the connection, but now that lessons have started again, I'm going to have to face reality... Japanese is way more important, but Swing is so much FUN. What to do...
3 comments:
We have a place like that in NY, and it's AWESOME. Couldn't you find Japanese lessons on a different night? It seems like there would be way more opportunities for that.
We should go to a ball when you guys come back stateside!
DANCE! That means you too, Russell!
Actually, you'd be surprised how hard it is to get Japanese lessons here. At least, hard to get regular good lessons at late enough hours that I can work full time, get back to the city and have a place to take the class. There aren't any community or group lessons that late at night and I can't afford the private tutors ($50/30min is a bit steep for me).
Plus, my current teacher is awesome. I really want to continue with her and she's teaching me for free. Unfortunately, Wednesday night is the only night.
My current plan is to do my one hour of Japanese and then book it to Osaka to catch the dancing. I won't make it for the lessons, but I bet my co-workers would fill me in.
We'll see how it goes.
I get a free day this week to go dance because its a National Holiday so the Japanese lesson is cancelled (but not the Swing).
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