After one week of being miserably sick, and then a week of slow recovery while still coughing a lot; with weekends doing living history stuff I have been unable dance from April 6th until the 23rd… Yikes. I managed to finally get into the Tyson’s studio on Wednesday night and again last night and I am hitting Centreville’s studio tonight and it is so good to be dancing again. Really, really, really good. I missed it.
I guess I did not realize how important this hobby has become to my happiness. Erci and I started taking lessons at the Arthur Murray studio back in May, 1996. We have not stopped since, and we continue to enjoy it immensely. We dance several places regularly, and we simply love to dance.
At times it has been painful (plantar fasciitis for me; knee, hip, and foot injuries for her). Often it has been frustrating trying to learn something new and not getting it for weeks or sometimes (rarely) even months. It is an expensive hobby the way we do it (costumes, lessons, shoes, events), but it is probably the last thing we’d give up. It is that much fun… it mixes physical, mental, social, and music interests. It just does not get much better than dance.
My favorites change from year to year, but samba and west coast swing are most consistently and frequently my favorite dances. For over a year I have also really loved foxtrot, quickstep, and rumba; but before that it was swing and cha-cha. I used to hate club swing and hustle, but I am finally learning the hustle step correctly and it makes even that dance much more fun. Mambo and salsa have been the biggest challenges for me, I simply can’t identify which beat is the one on many popular mambo and salsa tunes (I can clearly hear beats, but which is which is my problem). An excellent DVD explaining mambo clave beats has helped enormously… I figure I can find the 2 about 35% of the time now instead of 10% of the time… but that still leaves a lot of good salsa music out for me…
I believe that regular dance helps prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease because it makes your brain exercise socially, mentally, and physically all at once. Dancing as probably helped prevent my getting much fatter than I already am. I have certainly met many fantastic people from many walks of life while dancing and at dance events. It is fun being able to dress up once in a while for an event (how many guys my age own their own tuxedo with tails?).
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