Swing Dancing

Memories is a nice little venue down in Whittier that plays some of the best swing music, mixed with an occasional Blues/West Coast Swing song.

This night was going to be a special night. It was a member of the Clientele’s birthday, a core member. A few others and I arrived earlier to help setup. It was Jake’s birthday, and his nickname is BabyBlue. He thought maybe two or three of us would show up, but we got ten to fifteen people. That, and a gift he wasn’t expecting, would make his night.

We had all just arrived when he walked in, and boy was he surprised. Baby Blue colored balloons, a giant happy birthday sign, friends everywhere. Whittier isn’t close to pretty much anyone, which made him even happier that everyone had gone this out of their way to come to his birthday party.

Other than that, a Lindy Hop World Champion was there that night, and he was an absolute pleasure to watch. So playful and tossing girls here and there, and had several moves in he repertoire I hadn’t seen anywhere else. He even tossed one of our members straight into a group picture midst dancing, and then pulled her out onto the dance floor — it was amazing.

Birthday Surprise – Success!

The Las Vegas Exchange, or “Vega Sex Change” as many people are calling it, was definitely an experience. We decided to leave straight after Lindy Groove and pull an all-nighter. Skip traffic and get there with the day to spend doing whatever we pleased.

Thursday Night/Friday Morning

We left at about 12:30 and headed to our friend’s house. We shoved everything into a couple cars, grabbed food and left. By 2PM we were on the actual road!

There were three cars that formed a mini caravan. While one of the cars, Herbie, is great, we had to make sure it didn’t overheat so kept to about 65mph the entire trip, which slowed some things down but also lead to some interesting events.

While driving, we noticed several classic VW cars go by. When we stopped at a gas station, they happened to stop there as well. We found out they were going to a VW convention, in Vegas! We were tempted to stay with them but decided against it.

At this gas station was also the beginning of our random dancing moments. We saw a double-segmented semi truck, with flat beds, pull up and stop. We really wanted to dance on it. The two girls in our car ran up to the truck driver and asked him if we could. In short, he said yes, for a few minutes.

We quickly hopped on, played some music and danced on a truck bed, had some fun with dips and it was amazing!

Ok, back on the road. We took a stop on the side of the freeway to organize some of the trip plans. While we did, a couple of people jumped out of the car and started dancing along the side of the freeway! We have great pictures. As usual, I will try to post some of them here. They haven’t been uploaded just yet.

Again we got on the road. As we continued driving we noticed it starting to get lighter. I thought it would be a great idea to stop and dance at sunrise, which we communicated to the other drivers. They agreed.

When it became time, probably around 7:30, we pulled off the road and found a little hill. It was freezing outside. Goosebumps were popping out on people’s arms everywhere. We quickly setup music and started dancing, somewhat awkward on the rocks and dirt. That is when we spotted the junk yard.

We knew we had to do it. Quickly packing up our stuff we took our camers and headed towards the junk yard. None of us had been in one before. Rusty cans, car parts, beer cans, broken boats. It was a bona fide junk yard. We danced and took more pictures… and then was saw the sun rise above a hill.

A friend stood there, and her lines against the sun formed a near perfect silhouette. We climbed through a mountain of junk and reached the top of a mini-hill. We took more pictures and found a desert road. The reds, oranges and blues mixed in with the peaceful desert trail and cacti was simply picturesque.

Friday morning was amongst us, and we headed back in to the car for the final stretch to Aruba, the hotel where we were going to stay.

When we pulled in we quickly found that it was not the quality of hotel we expected, but the quality of motel. Three stories up, chipped stones and stairs only. No casino. Our door was jammed, no carpeting, and the bathroom door was jammed. We were disappointed, to say the least. We decided to grab breakfast, shoved the two twinbeds together and took a five hour nap.

Friday Night

We woke up starving (well, some of us were starving). It was 4PM, so we decided to wander and find a grocery store.

Easy task, right? Wrong.

We went block after block, looking both ways. No grocery stores. Finally, we tried using a GPS which got us to a “Circle K” (which it had found under grocery store listings. We didn’t know that it was actually a gas station. Fortunately, there was a mexican grocery right next to it, and they had incredible prices on produce. 5lbs of oranges for $2, it was amazing. We picked up some food there, but nothing we could eat immediately.

We decided to eat anywhere that was food and soon pulled into an Arby’s. While we sat down to eat, a man came up to us and said he would like to sing for us in exchange for a few bucks. We thought, sure, why not? He sang Seal – Kissed from a Rose. He was INCREDIBLE. We had to dance to him.

After giving him a few bucks, he sang another song. It was great fun to dance to him, despite the limited space and dodging chairs. He and his wife loved us and we soon took pictures and got their email to send it to them. It was so much fun.

We got back, got ready and headed to the dance floor. They were having DJ battles, which was a cool idea but got a little bit annoying only because they stopped every 15 minutes and took off 5-10 minutes for a crowd vote of the DJs. Dancing with people you don’t know with and seeing them smile at moves they haven’t seen is always a pleasure.

After the DJ Battles ended, they played a little more swing, but then moved into the Blues. Finally. There had been another Blues room but it was very smokey, which none of us enjoyed. It was probably about 1 to 2 in the morning now, and people were drifting away. We knew we were going to stay until the end… and so we had good dance after good dance. So many people at exchanges it’s always so much fun to find so many great leads and follows.

As more people left early into the morning it gave us the opportunity to really use floor space, and to move across and around the whole thing without bumping into anyone. Finally, they called last song at around 4. While I don’t remember the song now… it was a great last song and the dance was incredible (thanks to my partner).

After we had finished, we started joking with the DJ saying we weren’t ready to end off. So, he threatened to play a really fast song to tire us out. We took his challenge and asked for the fastest he had. I whispered to the others to do the C-Hop (Clientele Hop), a dance we had made up specifically for fast songs. We just started jumping and going around, using all remnants of energy left in our bodies to keep up to the music and made it through the whole song! We were impressed with ourselves, and apparently so were out spectators. It was a good night.

Saturday Day/Night

After getting to sleep at about 4:30-5 the previous night, we woke up at 9. The girls were very excited about a burlesque class they were taking at 12 while the guys were set on food and sleep. We messed around up and through the girl’s burlesque class, which went and hour longer than expected (they got out at 2). We were now going to Dam Dancing! Upon reaching Hoover Dam, we were disappointed to know that we weren’t on a good part of the dam, but a building where you couldn’t see over the edge, or even see the river. While we stayed there for a while, my partner and I decided to walk along the Dam and take pictures of us dancing in two different time zones! Another spot we’ve danced added to the list.

On our way home we stopped at a buffet, where we also danced and finally got to fill our stomachs to our content! So relieving and sooo good. We continued home, prepared and finally got to dancing at around 9 o’clock.

They were continuing the DJ Battle, which we were getting tired of. We ended up leaving back to our room, doing random things until we finally found another room having blues dancing at 3 in the morning or so. Very relaxing, one of the DJs of the event was in the room, and DJing the music, despite that no more than one to two people could dance comfortably at a time.

An hour later we heard they finally changed DJs on the main dance floor, so we headed over there. This was the greatest part of the trip. There was around eight of us. The DJ was AWESOME. He told us he’d be there as long we were dancing and requesting music. We had joined up with another lead at this point, who I was watching to learn his style and my partner gained quite a bit of skill as well.

The guys had a few dances with each other, great dances with the follows, the girls sometimes danced with each other. Often there was only one or two people on the floor. The DJ and his girlfriend danced. We kept dancing and dancing, having no care in the world what time it was. Every dance was incredible by the fact that we were so tired yet relaxed and we were all in the moment. Finally, he called last song at 7AM. This was one of if not my favorite dance for the entire event. It’s an inexplicable feeling, but great.

Once the song finished, he called a second last song. My partner and I were dancing again… and we saw two friends of ours were going to come and try to steal us away. We whispered to each other and decided we would get away from them. I lifted her while running and ran to the other side of the room. The others followed us, and so we danced around, having an incredible dance at the same time dodging and maneuvering around and away from the other two.

That was the night. It was an incredible night. We had finished the dancing for the trip, and so we headed back towards our beds in the early morning light…

Sunday

We woke up at 11, and realized we didn’t know when our checkout time was. We all quickly got up and cleaned out the room. We found out at some point that our checkout time was 12, which we made. We were ready for the drive home. After taking some final group photos, we got in and took off.

The Las Vegas Exchange was now under our belt.

Wow! After this weekend I’m having a hard time remembering this night, but here’s my best.

The advanced class went really well, worked on more basics as well as taught a nice move. Unfortunately, unless you have a really top class follow, or someone who is in the class, it is hard to lead. I did nearly succeed with a friend of mine.

After that, it was our friend Katrina Haus’ birthday! She came and had a beautiful swing outfit, fedora and all. Her birthday dance was lots of fun, and of course included the complimentary lift at the end. We almost always have the loudest cheer crowd in Lindy Groove.

Gina, whom I have mentioned in the Swingin’ Clientele section, came dressed remarkably. Many of the girls in our group had been cutting their hair (to my dismay, though they do look incredible), so she decided she was going to “grow” her hair. She put on a bunch of fake hair and yarn and she looked SO amazing. I’ll have to see if I can find some pictures I can post. She completely stood out in the crowd of dancers, and spinning her made her “hair” flare. So much fun.

Emily, myself and Jeff had also gotten hair cuts. Emily’s made her look completely different, bangs ‘n’ all, and her hair was redyed. Everyone loved her outfit. Jeff came with an awesome fohawk, while I came with my normal short and slightly spikey hair. Ok, enough about hair!

The DJ that night was probably my favorite DJ at Lindy Groove ever. He just played great music consecutively. Take it, some of the songs were kind of long, but it was awesome. He also got a jam circle going, which I had never seen before at Lindy Groove. I do hope he comes back.

I just looked to see who he is, Daniel Newsome. He’s not only a very well reputed DJ from Denver, CO, but also an incredible swing dancer himself. If you look at the gallery from the previous link you will see what I mean. After looking at some of those pictures, I realize I had seen him in instructional videos and I also think in videos of ULHS (Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown).

The night went well, the only regret being that he didn’t call out the last song. He either said a few more or about three more, but did not say last song. That’s just a minor detail, but it was great.

We were now headed to the Las Vegas Lindy Exchange.

Wow, already backlogged with dances!

This was the first night of my advanced class, so it was going to be interesting. As I was putting on my dance shoes before the class, Jessie came in. She immediately started saying how nervous she was. She was nervous to the point that she brought chocolate to calm her down.

I thought about it, and I wasn’t nervous in the least. I was nervous beyond belief at asking Debbie for the audition in the first place, while Jessie was not at all. The roles had reversed.

So, we went in the class, and thank god they started at the basics. Debbie’s partner had arrived, Patrick. They gave many corrections, though I was glad to know it wasn’t only me:

“Remember to be on your toes, with your butt out. Your left hand needs to be relaxed, don’t have it tight. Your right hand needs to be solid on their back with no fingers. Remember to whip around your had on 5. Drop your left hand on 3 and pick it up on 6.” So on and so forth.

It was so much fun! It was very intense but I could immediately feel improvements in my abillity to lead people. I could tell when I was doing something wrong and I could fix it fast. They also moved at a much faster pace, telling you to do something, and then you do it. No preliminary steps. One girl got overwhelmed at the fast pace and started saying it was really hard to concentrate on so many things.

I was very glad I was not the only one getting corrections. By the end of the class, I found it remarkably easier to lead people, and I never had much trouble before. All this for $5? Amazing, simply amazing.

So I went out on the floor in a great mood and just started dancing, applying everything I learned. It was so much fun, and I could tell I was working different muscle groups and it felt great. I realized, and they commented in the class, that I needed to start dancing with the better dancers. It would help me get better a lot faster.

Me and several others got into Lindy Groove for free that night because Jeff Antoine had put us on his birthday list, so we wanted to make sure he had a great birthday circle. I think he got a lot more than he expected. Our friend Shawn lifted him on his shoulders as we loudly sang happy birthday and whistled. It’s such a fun experience to be in the circle, even if you are embarrassed like I was on my first birthday dance.

While the dancing was good at Lindy Groove, most of my fun came later at IHOP, where we listened to random music in the early hours (we left at 5:30AM) and some comedy bits. It’s good to know that things get funnier the later it gets.

We arrived late as we had spent the day going up and down 3rd Street Promenade, which was loads of fun. Unfortunately for us, the band played about five songs before they finished their set. It was only 10:30 PM. Usually the band ends at 11-11:30 PM. We really wanted to dance.

First, we took more pictures (I will probably edit this post later and post a few of them here or in the Gallery), which were absolutely amazing. If you haven’t been to the Cicada Club, you should. It is the most high class, gorgeous venue I’ve been to.

After we were done with pictures, we decided to go up to the mezzanine lounge where they still had the bar open and some dancing. Unfortunately, the music was not the greatest. In fact, it was very, very boring. Had a couple more dances, and that was it.

We ended up chatting a little bit, then we decided to take off. This night was definitely not the best, but look forward to the pictures!

I arrived late, probably around 11:10. Fortunately for me, Third Saturday Swing has a unique method of handling entrance fees, and after 11:00 the price drops from $8 to $3. To top it off, they have food. Pizza, fresh fruit, candy, chips, and so on, covered with that price.

Jake was the only other Clientele member coming that night, and I had seen his car, Herbie, sitting out front of the venue so I knew he was inside. After I found him, he let me know he hadn’t danced in the 10 minutes or so he was there, which surprised me at the time, but I found out why.

The room was quite sparse; there were very few people there in comparison to TSS’s “normal”. Also, the people there were some of the better dancers, which can be a bit daunting. So, I immediately started snacking on the food and looking around for who I would dance with.

I had seen many of the follows there, but all the very good leads were either dancing with them or watching them dance, and I was not in the mood to be watched. So, I meandered here and there, enjoyed the music, and had a few good dances.

At about 12 they did the last raffle of the night, and one of the items they were raffling off was entrance to Do Something Blue, usually $8. I thought to myself “I would really like that”. I knew there were very few people in the room so I had a good shot. He raffled one number, no one had it. He raffled another number, and it was mine. I reread my ticket a few times, and it definitely was mine. AWESOME!

After that, Jake noticed a couple girls and was thinking about asking them to dance. I said why don’t we ask one each, so we did. The girl he danced with was in Debbie’s Advanced Class at Lindy Groove, and we ended up chatting quite a bit with her the rest of the night. We will probably be hearing more from her in the future.

Jake and I also worked on the C-Hop. We took some of the new variations the Clientele had come up at SFLX (San Francisco Lindy Exchange) last weekend and make it have good 8 counts and incorporate everyone’s move. It is expanding! People we don’t know join us while we do it.

The last thing that made the night was the music in the last half an hour was amazing. They played good songs one after each other, for about 10 songs. Even though I didn’t dance to any of them, as most of the follows were taken and I was more in the mood to dance with someone I knew, they were great fun to listen to. Also, Ben and Sheri, the people who put on Third Saturday Swing, did an amazing dance which was so much fun to watch.

And that was the night!

Welcome to my swing dancing blog, this is my first post. I’ll later have a page on the history of how I got to this point, but for now, I’m just going to be posting the various swing dancing events and venues I go to, starting with last night’s Lindy Groove.

Last night started with a bang! I left hurriedly trying to get to Lindy Groove before 8, when I planned to audition for the advanced class. It’s nerve racking enough auditioning with one of the best follows at Lindy Groove, Debbie Gitt, but I had previously auditioned and I was told to come back in a 1 1/2Â to 2 months. That was four months ago.

I arrived with just a couple of minutes before 8, and I rushed to put my dancing shoes on and find a friend with whom I could warmup with. I quickly realized that the only follow that I knew was in the intermediate class. There was no way I was going to audition without warming up first. I walked to the entrance of Lindy Groove hoping I would see a friend arriving, and there was Kathy! She is in the advanced class, and so I had her rush over and told her that I’d like to warm up, as I was about to audition.

Right about when we were going to start, we saw the class had already begun to practice The Big Apple, and so she rushed into class. It was 8:07, there was supposed to be 8 minutes before the actual class started. One thing to know about auditioning, it’s not a set schedule. You ask Debbie if you’re ready, you dance with her, and she lets you know whether you have anything to work on or whether you made it.

Sadly disappointed that I had missed the time to audition, I started wandering away from the class. I knew that the next time to audition was at the end of the class, which would be in about an hour. I started walking away, then back to the main dance floor when Jake, another friend, popped his head out of the door and asked if I would like to just watch. I figured, sure, why not? I walked in, and I saw that there was another lead who was trying to audition, who also decided to watch the class.

Debbie introduced herself to each of us, and let us know how the class works, and so on. She also said that it was lead heavy, meaning they were in need of more follows, not leads. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I decided I wanted to show my dedication and I was going to watch the whole class.

I watched the class, which was interesting. I love The Big Apple but it’s quite confusing. I took a one-hour class about a year before with the legendary Frankie Manning, but I definitely didn’t remember it that well. This was the fifth and last week they had been working on it, and it was a review class.

At the end, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. All the people were going to get their water, bags, and so on, and move to the main dance floor, while Sam, another teacher and friend, was talking about eating. I started talking with Sam, explaining how I didn’t know if it was the best time to audition taking the fact that the class was, indeed, lead heavy. He said just go for it.

Debbie, who had been somewhat wandering, came back and asked me to do some swing outs with her. Just a little bit nerve racking, being asked to dance without warming up at all. In fact I could say my muscles were cold. And so I did, and after two swing out, she started with many corrections. I had to loosen up my arm, while use my fingers less in the back, but keep a strong connection, while keeping my back muscles together… I thought that was it, and I was going to be told to come back.

She then said “Yeah, you’re fine, you just need to bring a follow.” I was shocked. I made it? Great! But, I need to bring a follow to audition. Well, that’s fine, I’m sure I can find someone. Right when I was walking out the door, my friend Jessie walked in. She asked Debbie, “I know I’m not ready for the advanced class but I was hoping you could give me some pointers to work on so that I could prepare for it.”

I paused in the doorway, thinking this could work. She danced with Jessie, gave her many corrections, then also said she was good enough, and that we were both in. I made it!

That was most of the excitement for me that night, but I’ll also note the other significant events. I left the advanced class, found all my friends and was super excited. It was also Etana’s and Alejandro’s birthday that night, which made it an extra special event. My dance partner, Emily, was also bringing a new guy, hopefully a new potential lead.

I decided to try to be a follow and dance with Alejandro, and we were doing great, before we fell. He had decided to go into a mini aerial, and I had no idea how to do it. Boy, did we eat it! We quickly got up, and he decided he wanted to try again. I had figured out what we were supposed to do as we had fallen, so we then did it and finished the dance, a very laughable event.

I was feeling great and having a great time dancing, and using my lack of traction to the best of my ability (due to my dancing shoes). I only mention because as I was dancing with Emily, I decided to try to keep a spin going and throw it into a dip. She lifted her legs off the ground and so was completely airborne as she was spinning. She spun around from being somewhat behind me to being in front of me, and landed softly on her knees, it was awesome! It was entirely due to my shoes continuing to slide.

After Lindy Groove ended, we continued on to IHOP, our weekly tradition as it had been since I started dancing nearly two years ago. At IHOP we continue to dance, though switching now to Blues as opposed to Swing Dancing. It was about this time that I realized I had 4 hours of sleep and was VERY tired. I had several more dances with Emily, and to to blow my own horn, but this is where we do really well.

It was a good night.