Conversation & Connection

Dancers have a different idea of "personal space".

For regular people, 3 feet is a good, comfortable social "space".

For dancers, one foot is lots! In Blues and Tango and Balboa, personal "space" is more like a nanometer.

How much "space" is a nanometer? It is the difference between "hot" and "cold" on your shower control. Like, nothing. But when you find that space..... Mmmn, Sooo Good!

What an opportunity to Connect with and start a Conversation with another person!

Dancing is a kind of conversation with another body, another spirit.... in a language everyone can understand.

"Dancing is just a conversation between two people. Talk to me." -- Hope Floats (1998) - Justin Matisse (Harry Connick Jr.)

Alas, there are flies in the ointment:

"Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can't talk and dance at the same time."

Ginger Rogers

But then, it wouldn’t be fun if it was easy!

In the course of a typical 3-minute dance song, you can deeply connect with someone you have never met before. Or dance more deeply with someone you have danced with hundreds of times, in yet one more, new way.

How many ways are there to connect in dance? Something like this:

* Number of Leads, 1,000,000

* X Number of Follows, 1,000,000

* X Number of Songs, 1,000,000

* = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 = 1 quintillion

Roughly.

Get going! Not a minute to waste.

> Can I be one of your quintillion? Ask me to dance, please!

There is a Balboa phrase:

"Good Balboa is when it feels like one body dancing."

There are magic moments in dancing, across all styles, when for a moment, or an entire magical dance, the Connection is SO tight.

When you can feal they're heart beat. The heat on your skin. Their breathes on your face.

That you begin to feel your bodies moving as if they were one. That you are so Connected with someone that "leading" and "following" almost cease to have meaning. It becomes as irrelevant as saying "my left arm is leading and my right arm is following".

There is magic in meeting another person, another body, another spirit - and connecting with them, for 3 minutes, in a song.

It is an ideal and a goal that I will come back to over and over again in this blog.

And on the dance floor.

Did I mention? Dance with me!

Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud