One Year of Swing

I just realized that this coming Wednesday will mark my first year of swing dancing. Russell and I have really learned a lot in one year and made a lot of good friends. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the swing group in Osaka that taught us, dragged us through our first attempts and continued asking us to dance in spite of the job we were doing. We were lucky to mixed up with such a friendly and upbeat group.

We are also lucky to be going into the Spring blitz of swing events. All around Golden Week the swing scene in Osaka comes alive. There will be the normal weekly dances - but with some added flare, workshops, dance events centered around live performances and jazz festivals that will likely be taken over by dancers. Its a good time to be looking to dance.

During English class at the university the other day, we were doing a speaking activity designed to get students to socialize with each other and use English. They had to ask each other if they liked doing certain activities, like playing video games, skiing, etc. Of course, I was wandering around the group answering and asking questions, too. One student asked me if I liked dancing. I told him I did and as a follow up (bright kid, gold star for him) he asked what kind of dancing I liked. I told him swing dancing and he immediately looked it up on YouTube. He verified with me that he had found the correct style (he had - it was a fairly representative social dance - thankfully not a competition with aerials) and then he showed it to the other boys that were hanging around. "Hey, this is what the teachers does!" They all started laughing hysterically.

I choose to assume they were laughing with sheer respect and awe.