YEE-HAW!!!

I had quite an accomplishment Friday night.

Here’s the story: A couple of years ago I went through a square dance class and made it through graduation, but work-related travel and other things made my attendance toward the end spotty. As a result, although I learned the moves at end of the program, I didn’t learn them well and did not feel comfortable going to ordinary dances.

I planned to start the class over the next fall, but didn’t know when the class was starting and missed it.

So this year I ran across a handbill at a western wear store saying when a class was starting and went.
In fact, I started attending several different clubs.

Many of the moves were familiar, of course, and for others my dim memories of them quickly began to reawaken, and soon I was able to dance along with the club (not just the class) at a couple of these groups.

But I couldn’t do that at one of them.

Y’see, different clubs have different preferences about how easy or challenging they like it when they dance.

The Friday night group has the toughest caller in the county (at least as far as I am aware). He’s a really good teacher, but for club dances he does the most challenging calling of anybody around these here parts. By that I mean that he calls the dance faster, uses more the more complex moves more often, and uses impromptu variants a lot. You really have to be good in order to dance in a club session that he calls.

As a result, after starting back to square dancing, it took the longest for my skills to get back to where they needed to be if I were to dance with the Friday night club.

I mean, there was no way that I’d be able to do the fearsome Load The Boat or the dreaded Teacup Chain or the sanity-shattering Relay The Deucey or the soul-destroying Spin Chain And Exchange The Gears.

Not without some review and practice.

I mean, compared to those moves of elder madness things like Dixie Style To An Ocean Wave are nothing.

But Friday night I made the breakthrough!

With the encouragement of some of the club members, I stayed after the class period and danced with the club.

I was able to keep up with the other dancers, even at the
high-challenge level that this club and caller enjoy. I even got
through Relay The Deucey and Spin Chain And Exchange The Gears.

I danced every single tip except for the first. (A tip is a unit of two dances, typically a patter call followed by a singing call.)

This means that, between the class and the club, I danced for THREE HOURS Friday night, and on Saturday I had the muscle strains and aches all over my body to prove it.

My dancing ability at this level is still shaky, but I expect that within a couple of months I’ll have it smoothed out, especially with the amount of practice I’m getting these days.

I also imagine that my body will adjust fairly quickly to the level of activity I’m putting it through in these dances.

Friday night isn’t even the longest dance night I’m doing.

At my Sunday night group I’m doing a two hour class of round dancing, followed by a two hour club of square dancing, for a total of FOUR hours.

Body aches are normal on Monday at this point.