My Dance Story

As I sit here, in the dead of the night wondering what I should do for the upcoming days. I go on my daily routine of skimming through all the blogs that I've got in my bookmarks. I read one that made me think about what actually got me dancing in the first place. Oh have I been dancing all my life. Just that I didn't know it. Or have I not learnt to dance at all, even after close to 16 months of lessons?

Nonetheless, I am still totally addicted lindy hop itself. Why not salsa, tap, hip-hop or anything else? I've no idea myself. It just felt totally right, the moment I picked it up. I was in. I was a willing slave to the dance itself.

This was how it all happened...

"I was going through a particularly bad phase in life... around 17-18 months ago. Was still stuck in the Army. Lost and disheartened, I turned against myself and repelling everything that came along. Probably one of the darkest periods of life probably. I hated my work. I hated waking up at 6 every day. I hated having to travel 40km across the highways to my office. I half-hated my boss too. To say that I hated everything... even myself is quite an understatement.

The only thing that I really seemed to like was one particular album that I listened to all day. It was a blues album. It was the first "Lady Sings The Blues" album. A brilliant double disc with lotsa goodies in it. Perhaps then, I just loved to wallow in misery. You know... listen to stuff that'll make u worse. And then, I'll feel better at the end of the day. I don't really how it functions. But it works.

I think I played the blues so much... so much that my fellow conscripts were getting pissed at me. Sorry pals. Really sorry. Think, that was about then when Iggy came by and asked me bout my musical preferences and stuff like that. And I told him that I liked this particular genre of music, just that I didn't really know much about it.

The next few days, he brought his collection of swing music and other jazzy music for me to sample. And before I knew it... I was hooked even more than I knew I would be. In no time, he was asking me if I was interested of learning to dance. I was like, "Me? Dance?!? No way... it's just so not me!!!"

Never in my entire life did I once think I could dance. Imagine what the girls like Tab, Hexin & Peiru might say? Imagine what my soccer-watching, beer guzzling khakis might say? Imagine what my folks at home might say? They'll all think that I've truly lost it this time around. I bet my mom must have been truly bewildered when I told her that I wanted to take dance classes!

I've done dumb stuff all my life... and I thought, why not? At most, I'll fail spectecularly. Or I'll just make it. So, I decided to give it a go and Iggy started informally teaching me some basic moves and steps. He prolly thought that it'll be nice to intrest me with something that has some kinda link to me. So he taught me the Charleston. (Heh... Lindy 2 stuff was boring for me... Coz I'd learnt most of the stuff that the studio taught from Iggy by then.) Apparently I wasn't great... but slowly I began to understand how the music flowed and how should I count myself into the music. It was then when peeps like Shouyi, Jimmy & Justin were noticing what we were doing and were slightly interested at what Iggy and I were doing. Before we knew it... we were having informal classes during lunchtime and breaks.

But it was when I first started learning the triple-steps that I felt so into the dance itself. It felt... all so familiar and that I've done it all before. The footwork... The triple-steps. I remember... I'd honed them while I was still in secondary school!!! Utter rubbish perhaps. But I know that while I was running through the crowded bus terminals everyday on my way to school in the mornings, I've taken those familiar triple-steps so many times and it had never occured that I was actually dancing through the madden morning crowd to school! Hell... I even threw in an own-by-self outside turn just to get out of the crowd.

The flashbacks in my head started appearing just like it would in the eyes of the protagonist of some late night thriller. Just that the scenes were sepia or black/white scenes of people dancing and doing aerials. Till then, no one had told me that Lindy Hopping had involved aerials/air-steps. So I proceeded to ask Iggy if Lindy involved people throwing their partners through the air and stuff... and he said it it. Hmm... So. What does that mean? I've no idea myself. I must have seen it somewhere b4. In my dreams or somewhere else.

Iggy thought that since quite a bit of us were actually interested in Lindy, we all should sign up for classes at Jitterbugs and go learn from the studio instead. So Raymond, Justin, Jimmy, Shou Yi and I all signed up for Lindy 1 while Iggy, Zane and Juli signed up for Lindy 2 (just for the fun of it.)

I knew I was hooked. Hooked so bad I just couldn't get enough of it. Thursdays became days where I could get my Lindy Fix. And Saturdays became days where I could either head down to The Regent or Harry's to swing.

Everywhere that I went with Iggy, I pestered him to teach me something more. Bit by bit... we worked on our flip-flops and travelling charlestons at the Istana Park near Plaza Singapura. By the time it was April... I had already done my first aerial. That's like just one month after I started official classes in the studio. Pretty crazy to do aerials without spotters but I knew we would be okay lah. So... Iggy led me into a around-the-bar in the middle of the CBD. It wasn't easy. Luckily I could just pretty high and tuck in my knees against my body, so I went throught unscathed. Just could really nail the perfect landing, but the crazy experience was good enough for me. We were so mad that even when we went over to Perhentian for our holidays, Shou Yi and I were pestering Iggy and Zane to teach us more new steps and we ended up doing Jazz-steps and throw-outs all through the night in our little rooms. Yes, I think we're pretty mad.

Sadly I'm the only remaining guy from the initial group of 7 guys left. The rest have stopped dancing for various reasons... like studies, lack of interest, work and some are going overseas. Some have even tasted the dark side of Salsa. Hahah... but it's all fine. It's just nice that I had started doing Lindy Hop with a group of friends that I'd enjoyed hanging out with.

Anywayz while the rest have departed, I've participated in Performance Classes, performed that rountine during Swing Fling, made a crazy bunch of Murtabak-ing new friends that I never thought that I would know, auditioned and made it to L4 already. I dunno what lies ahead in the future but I can't wait to see what happens next. =)