Save The Last Lindy Turn For Me

Thursday was a dance day – Save The Last Dance with Pei Ee in the afternoon, and lindy-hopping at night.

Save The Last Dance: some good dancing, pity about the rest of it. Especially cringeworthy bits included the black-guy-teaches-white-girl-how-to-get-wit-de-ghetto sequence that seems obligatory in these kinds of films, and, unfortunately for the scriptwriters, the big Emotional Breakthrough Moment when she finally managed to talk about her dead mother and why she quit ballet. We were greatly amused by the “MY DREAMS KILLED HER!!!” line. (If you haven’t seen the film, you can probably work out most of what happens just from this, with very little imagination needed)

All the same, I am a sucker for these self-discovery and realization of dreams and oh yeah, love, through _________ (fill in relevant dance style eg. disco, ballroom, mambo etc., and if you can name the corresponding film for each of those, then maybe you’re a sucker too) movies. I like climactic triumphal dance extravaganza scenes.

And then there was lindy-hopping, which has once again got me in its irresistably addictive grip. As much as I like clubbing, no clubbing experience I’ve ever had (with the exception of the drum’n’bass room at Fabric) manages to match the couple of hours I lindy-hop each week for pure joy provision.

I know why. It’s in that buoyant moment where push and pull and my fingers hooked on his all work together to give ooomph, that elusive but wonderful connection with a good partner. It’s in the music, never monotonous like club music can often be, full of wonderful sounds; trumpet like the sun singing, Ella’s voice like warm silken honey on your skin. It’s in the quaintly romantic idea of his proferred hand, her smile of acceptance, the communion of eyes during the dance, even though most of us are there to romance the dance rather than each other.

That’s why it ain’t got a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Rare Regrets

Thursday and Friday nights reminded me that I have a small number of regrets about the past year in London.

Thursday night was spent back at Jitterbugs Swingapore getting re-acquainted with lindy-hopping, which I fell madly in love with last summer but failed to keep up with in London, due to lack of time, or rather, lack of time management. It was mildly depressing to dance with Richard, former Lindy II and III classmate, and feel woefully inept because of how good he’s gotten in the past year. It was mildly annoying to see that the same girl who irritated me last year with her cutesypieness is still there and cutesier than ever.

There were still moments I enjoyed, like dancing to Indigo Swing’s How Lucky Can One Guy Be (a song that featured prominently in my first few classes and which I still love), and I must admit it felt good to look at other people in the Lindy III class I attended and know that however much I may have stagnated or worsened over the year, I still wasn’t the worst dancer there, but I just couldn’t help thinking how much better it could all have been if I’d just kept on dancing in London.

Reality bites now, though, and an exasperatingly right voice informs me that whatever I may have wasted last year, I won’t be able to make up for it in the coming year, because I’m going to be even busier, with heavier debating and hall commitments, and I sort of want to get first class honours in law at the end of it as well.

Friday did not, at least, involve feeling woefully inept – I attended a three-hour briefing session for judging at the upcoming national debating championships, which is something I feel well qualified for, but juxtaposed with Thursday night, it made me wonder if I’ve spent too much time in my university life debating and too little time, well, swingin’.