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Thread: Playful dancing

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    Registered User Wouldbe's Avatar
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    Playful dancing

    After only dancing for just over a year I felt I needed a bit more from modern jive dancing than a beginners class and an intermediate class. It's not that I didn't feel challenged any more by intermediate moves, it's that I started to forget a lot of those I'd learned because they were all beginning to blur into a few similar sorts of shapes and that my dancing was becoming repetitive. Anyone I danced with more than once in the course of an evening would be subjected to the same set of moves limited to what I could remember, and I felt "This is not what it's all about".

    For me, injecting playfulness into dancing has been a real turn-around. It felt a bit forced at first, taking more daring than I thought I was brave enough for, but in playing/flirting/wiggling more and generally taking it all less seriously my confidence has really increased, so I push boundaries even further, and I find myself enjoying my dances a lot more again. [I don't ever cross the line of decency though - at least I hope not!]

    Part of this process for me has been learning to follow - I have to laugh at myself doing this because I'm unlearning a lot of what I've been taught as a lead and mistakes come in their droves! There are also those moments where, if I dance with another guy, there's a nervous tension that I shouldn't be holding his hand or touching his shoulder that creases me up mid-dance everytime. This is why I try to have at least one dance like this per dance night - recommend it to anyone for the amusement factor.

    On Saturday at a freestyle I was dancing with another guy and a girl came running over, hijacked us and led us two complete novices through a whole song double-trouble. That took my evening to a new level again - WOW, so much fun, and for her courageousness...
    Feel free (you know who you are) to strike again anytime... in fact, that's an open invitation... don't be shy!

    So what's my point? Well, do other people like to be surprised by their dancing in this, or other ways? Do people prefer to take their dancing seriously, concentrating on good technique and style, and feeling proud at the end of a dance? Would other people like to feel able to take it all less seriously but they're finding it so damned difficult to stay upright that they daren't relax? Has anyone gone through a similar mind-process about their own dancing? Just me being nosey, really, I guess! No poll this time though, I promise.

  2. #2
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Me and my mates are always up for a bit of fun in our dancing. I do occasoinally take my dancing quite seriously but without a bit of fun and playtime on the dance floor it makes it less enjoyable.. hope u find yourself some playmates soon

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    Senior Member Minnie M's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Normally I really hate it when my dance is interupted by my lead grabbing another dancer to make 'double trouble' - it makes me feel cheated

    However, at Storm this year I had a 'double trouble' dance with the lovely Trouble and a chap whose name I don't know and it was really fab and such fun

    It must have looked funny too, as this chap was quite small - but a great dancer and he really knew his 'double trouble' moves (+ Trouble & I camped it up too )


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    Re: Playful dancing

    I can be quite serious about dancing if I am trying to remember a move to freestyle with or to follow a new ( to me) dancer.

    However:
    If some of the poor souls who know me best get dragged to the floor, then (particularly if I haven't seen them for a while) I can get really playful.

    One guy who joined Ceroc at around the same time as me ( he knows who he is and i'm Sorry [ in advance ] !) gets all my playful moves tried out on him. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't - but we always seem to have a laugh.

    I think he has the patience of a saint

    Whitetiger

    I generally behave for blues (or don't - it totally depends on track, hour of night, and dance partner )

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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by Caz View Post
    Me and my mates are always up for a bit of fun in our dancing. I do occasoinally take my dancing quite seriously but without a bit of fun and playtime on the dance floor it makes it less enjoyable.. hope u find yourself some playmates soon
    i love playing with ya Caz

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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by Minnie M View Post
    Normally I really hate it when my dance is interupted by my lead grabbing another dancer to make 'double trouble' - it makes me feel cheated

    However, at Storm this year I had a 'double trouble' dance with the lovely Trouble and a chap whose name I don't know and it was really fab and such fun

    It must have looked funny too, as this chap was quite small - but a great dancer and he really knew his 'double trouble' moves (+ Trouble & I camped it up too )
    its always a pleasure and never a chore dancing with you baby!!!

    but getting back to your original post WouldBe......., the only reason i dance is so that i can play. I get bored dancing with somebody who is a moves person. Its much more fun and much more exciting to put in breaks, sexy moves, little looks here and there and of course to hijack. So you keep it up and find what welcome to what real dancing is all about. xxx
    Last edited by Trouble; 31st-May-2007 at 11:49 AM.

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    Forum Bombshell - Our Queen! Lory's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by whitetiger1518 View Post
    I can be quite serious about dancing
    Me too
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    Re: Playful dancing

    I don't think I've ever taken any dance 'seriously'

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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    I don't think I've ever taken any dance 'seriously'
    I never take anything seriously.

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    Re: Playful dancing

    Chasing fun isn't fun. It's more fun to let the fun happen.

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    Registered User Whitebeard's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by MartinHarper View Post

    Chasing fun isn't fun. It's more fun to let the fun happen.
    Fun happens to fun people ;-)

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    Registered User Beowulf's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    I play on the dance floor. I rarely take things seriously. I don't "mess about" and do try to have a good dance with my partner, but depending on who it is I'll have a bit of a giggle at the same time.

    However despite my playfulness and joviality If I'm not in "the mood" .. that rare elusive state of mind that happens only occasionally then I find dancing to be one of the most arduous tortures devised by man.

    If I'm not dancing with someone I feel 100% comfortable with then every move is worried about, every beat missed is agonised over, my stomach becomes a tight Gordian knot of nerves, and the cold clammy hand of self doubt grabs me by the neck and whispers in my ear "what on earth do you think you're doing?"

    if it wasn't for the people I can "play with" and relax with then I doubt I'd continue dancing. It's Playful dancing .. or painful dancing. I've yet to hit a happy medium
    (although I did once slap a moderately amused psychic!)

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    Registered User Wouldbe's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by whitetiger1518 View Post
    I generally behave for blues (or don't - it totally depends on track, hour of night, and dance partner )
    Now that's a whole different kind of play! And that's an area I feel I need to work on - I'm not a convincing enough blues dancer. I end up doing slow Ceroc, which works for some moves and looks and feels ridiculous in others. Trying to look sexy and seduceable in a slow motion catapult just doesn't have the same effect. I can imagine there's plenty of opportunity for playfulness of the flirty kind (platonic or otherwise) here, particularly if you know your partner. Blues has gotta be my next conquest.

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    Registered User jockey's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Occasionally Im driven to dance some disco on the side if the song is an old classic or a fast swing or r and R number that would be uncomfortable with a partner - this practically ensures that a 'follower'approaches and attempts to join in this 'stroll' or, worse, grabs me for a 'dance' (perhaps thinking that I couldnt get one so I had to dance on my own instead). Without fail the ensuing 'partner dance' exceeds my worst nightmare...

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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by Wouldbe View Post
    I end up doing slow Ceroc, which works for some moves and looks and feels ridiculous in others.
    Ridiculousness is a form of playfulness.

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    Registered User Spiky Steve's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by Wouldbe View Post
    Blues has gotta be my next conquest.
    You could have it cracked after the Utopia weekender in July.

  17. #17
    Registered User Wouldbe's Avatar
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    Re: Playful dancing

    Quote Originally Posted by MartinHarper View Post
    Ridiculousness is a form of playfulness.
    I agree if it's deliberate, or if as a result you make a joke of it...

    Quote Originally Posted by Spiky Steve View Post
    You could have it cracked after the Utopia weekender in July.
    Thanks for the tip. Never been, but heard lots of good things about it.

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