How did you get into dancing

[elisedance]

well I wish that more young men would be happy to play crciket and dance...well partner dancing...salsa seems to be OK to do......

Standard ballroom would probably help batsmen. And if they're good batsman, they'll find Standard less challenging than other beginners with no dance experience-- Balance, swaying/shaping, rise, compression, chasseing, moving forward, back or diagonal and whisks will all be familiar to the body to some extent. 

The trouble of course is that it's always difficult (for most) to pursue two disciplines. Also with the quality of bats these days, technique is seen to be less important - a lot of players are high-scoring most days despite some less than elegant footwork.

Still, if you run into any batsmen it might be worth suggesting that they try ballroom.

What a novel idea, a link of cricket and ballroom... methinks another topic...

[Burgess Penguin]

I was at one time horrifically shy.

Oddly enough, a part of what motivated me was the old "Dance Fever" TV show back in the day, the contestants looked like they were having the time of their lives for one. I also kept hearing that women like a guy who can dance or at least has the guts to try.

So one day in April of 1984, I signed up for some lessons and I was amazed at how much I liked it, Cha-Cha and EC Swing were the first 2 dances that clicked for me, plus the first teacher I had was so cool.

Gradually over time my skills improved but it was from about the late 90's on where my progress accelerated the most.

[cdnsalsanut]

I hurt my back playing tennis. So a friend suggested I take up salsa to help my footspeed and keep me in shape while I was off recovering.

Then I met a salsera and asked her to be my partner and she told me she had a partner but enjoyed ballroom dancing and would I like to go take some lessons with her? We still dance on thursday nights at Fregata.

Speaking of Thursday; I'm currently reading "At Home" by Bill Bryson. An interesting tidbit he mentions is about the influence of the angles, saxons and jutes on our culture (minimal) and yet although we know nothing of their beliefs, and yet a millenium and a half later we still pay homage to three of their gods - Tiw, Wod and Thor - in the names of our three middle weekdays and eternally commemorate Woden's wife, Frig, every Friday.

[elisedance]

Cute!  Au contraire on the angles saxons and jutes by the way, their culture mixed with the romans and then the french made english culture.  Indeed, I have it on authority of intuition that the Jutes liked to quit pillage, plunder and mayhem for a cup of tea served in bone china and a game of cricket on a sunday afternoon...

[cdnsalsanut]

Cute!  Au contraire on the angles saxons and jutes by the way, their culture mixed with the romans and then the french made english culture.  Indeed, I have it on authority of intuition that the Jutes liked to quit pillage, plunder and mayhem for a cup of tea served in bone china and a game of cricket on a sunday afternoon...

To quote Bryson:
The Jutes are completely mysterious. They are generally presumed to have come from Denmark because of the presence there of the province of Jutland. But a problem pointed out by the historian F.M. Stenton is that Jutland got its name long after any Jutes had departed, and naming a territory after people who are no longer there would be an act unusual to the point of uniqueness.
The Angles are only a little less obscure. They do get mentioned from time to time in European texts , so at last we can be confident that they really existed, but nothing about them suggests any importance. So it is more than slightly ironic that it was their name that came, more or less accidentally, to be attached to a country that they may only lightly have helped form.
That leaves only the Saxons, who were unquestionably a presense on the continent - the existence in Modern Germany of various Saxonys, Saxe-Coburgs and the like attests to that - though not a particularly mighty one either, it seems. The best Stention can say for them is that they were "the least obscure" of the three. Compared to the Goths sacking Rome or the Vandals sweeping over Spain, these were pretty marginal people. Britain, it seems, was conquered by farmers, not warriors.

So, Ee, it is suggested that the breaks were taken from sowing seeds rather than mayhem, which is not to say that they still didn't take their tea on bone china and a over or two of cricket. eh hem.

[elisedance]

hey, thanks for the refresher - I suppose Jutland got its name because the Jutes landed there too - which might explain the common name.  So where did they Jutes start out from?  Surely modern DNA testing will be able to solve this mystery...

we are of course missing the celts who brought some spunk to the Brits... though not enough apparently to ward off the franks...

[phoenix13]

Marriage was falling apart and I got laid off at the same time, so  I had lots of free time on my hands.  I figured what the heck!  I may as well spend my severance money pursuing something that had been a dream of mine for my whole life.  And the rest, they say, is history.

[elisedance]

Marriage was falling apart and I got laid off at the same time, so  I had lots of free time on my hands.  I figured what the heck!  I may as well spend my severance money pursuing something that had been a dream of mine for my whole life.  And the rest, they say, is history.

Terminating marriages seem to be one of hte driving forces of humanity   Best thing that ever happened to me (in the long run - didn't think so at the time of course ). 

[QPO]

well me too in a way. my first husband would not do it it so when V & I finally had some free time after closing a business I asked if he would come along with me and he did  I am a lucky girl

[phoenix13]

Marriage was falling apart and I got laid off at the same time, so  I had lots of free time on my hands.  I figured what the heck!  I may as well spend my severance money pursuing something that had been a dream of mine for my whole life.  And the rest, they say, is history.

Terminating marriages seem to be one of hte driving forces of humanity   Best thing that ever happened to me (in the long run - didn't think so at the time of course ). 

This. In spades

[elisedance]

hugs...

[phoenix13]

Thanks.

It's okay, though.  It takes a while to regain your equilibrium but,once you do, you're golden.

[elisedance]

Thanks.

It's okay, though.  It takes a while to regain your equilibrium but,once you do, you're golden.

you and me both sista!

Happiness truly is the best revenge - and I have never been happier than PMS*

*post marriage settlement

[phoenix13]

Love it!