[Dixielandjazz] dancers

[Pat Ladd]

a troupe of ball room dancers on board>.

Hi Jim,

Must have been one of these `teams` which infest dance floors these days. 
The trouble is, I think that they are made to stand in line in classes for 
ease of teaching and think that is what they should do on the dance floor.

When I learned ballroom dancing in my teens, clamped to the corseted bosom 
of an old biddy with arms of steel (I mean REALLY old, probably over 40) it 
was a very personal interpretation. Everyone danced the same steps, to the 
same beat (slow,slow,quick quick slow) but NOT at the same time and in the 
same direction.

Like you I could not possibly start dancing until the beginning of a bar 
although I was pretty adept at leading a girl onto the floor just in time to 
sweep her into my arms on the beat. Boy! I was smooth. With the zoot suit 
with the reet pleat etc...
Swing dancing is a regimented form of the jitterbug and should be banned. If 
you watch any old films of a dancing crowd they are jitterbugging all over 
but everyone is doing something different.  Not standing in lines. That 
fills the floor while the Brownian movement if individual couples creates 
space.
`In the mood` (played  by Joe Loss in the UKrather than Glen Miller ) was 
one of the best quicksteps .but I always preferred the other side of the 78 
which  was Woodchoppers Ball. Wow. see me fly

Memory is a great enhancer.

Cheers

Pat
.