Friday, November 18, 2011

When Close Is Too Close?

Dancing has changed my perspective to my personal space. I don't mind dancing really close to someone. For example, I feel totally comfortable dancing so that my and my partner's foreheads and noses touch, or that the dancing stance means full body contact from head to toe. Besides, usually its a lot more easy to follow the lead if there is a strong body contact between the dance partners. Before I started dancing my need for personal space was quite big, and I have to say I needed some time to get to this point.

However, there has been times when close has been too close. It is hard to explain why it felt uncomfortable but after the few bad experiences I have been avoiding dancing with those dancers. In theory, the girl should be able to determine how close the dance stance is, but some guys don't seem to understand the subtle hints. For instance, if the girl moves her hand from the guy's neck to his shoulder, he should (and usually does) understand it as a hint for more distance. Leaders on the other hand can quite easily move the girl away if she gets too friendly. It is a fine line between close and too close and I still haven't been able to figure out when or how the line is crossed.

This week has been pretty intense. Dancing practices every single day and, surprisingly, I wasn't able to say no to any of the dance parties. Spex practices have been going well but there has been an unpleasant change of plans: the directors decided to change the order of some of the dances. This means that all the hard planning our team leaders made for figuring out the dancers to each dance has been messed up. Now there is going to be few really fast changing of clothes etc. between the songs. Well, we just have to live with the dicicion and make sure that the audience doesn't notice anything.

What comes to the dance parties, I especially liked yesterday's HOS Big Band's gig in Kokomo. Awesome Latin music and lots of pro dancers in the dance floor. The only negative thing was that the dance floor was a way too small for all of us. Wednesday's ballroom dancing party was also a success and I'm definitely going to the next one also. Tuesday's Zouk party wasn't that inspirational for me, but it was only due to the fact that I was little tired after my Spex practice and somehow I just wasn't in the right mood for Zouk that time.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to a Spex weekend. I bet it is going to be heaps of fun but also hard work. All the experienced spexers have been saying that the weekend has always been memorable so I'm looking forward to it. But now I'm off to bed to get a good night sleep and the energy I need for the weekend!

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