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FR  Swing Dancing

Thinkingenigma

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Nov 25, 2012
Messages
293
I've always loved dancing, and I've been swing dancing since my freshman year of highschool (I'm a sophomore in college now). Last night, I had the opportunity to attend an informal dance that was being put on by some of my friends. I had just come from shooting photos of a graduation ceremony, so after changing my pants, I was wearing a tailored black two-tone dress shirt with dark-wash jeans and loafers. I was feeling like a boss.

When I got to the event, they had some basic dancing lessons for those who had never done it before. There were two instructors, and several more experienced dancers, myself included, that were helping the beginners. About 45 min in, several more people showed up and skewed the gender ratio more female. At this point, my partner was ready to take a break, so I wandered down off the stage to dance with some of the other girls. I immediately gravitated towards a tall thin blonde wearing a red tank top and cowboy boots. She was just standing off to the side and didn't bring a partner, so I walked up, took her hand, and told her to dance with me.

I quickly realized that she had never danced before, so I taught her the basic steps, and since she was a quick learner, we were quickly able to move to the more advanced stuff. Within about 10 min, she was spinning and flying all over the place. At that point, sparks were flying, especially when I started deep diving during the dance. Eventually, she was so dizzy from all of the twirling that I made her take a break before she fell over. Unfortunately, she didn't understand that I wanted to continue talking to her, so she went back to talk with her friends. I think she though I was suggesting we take a break so I could dance with other girls. Either way, she greatly enjoyed our interaction, so it ended well.

After dancing with her, I danced with two beautiful girls who had never done any swing dancing, but had a lot of experience in ballet. Dancing with them was one of the most fun experiences of the entire night, as they quickly picked up everything, and the two main instructors were able to teach us some crazy aerial stuff that looks super impressive and is a lot of fun. The fact that they are roommates that are super close to each other brings some interesting possibilities.

People keep telling me that I'm a good dancer and a great teacher, so I definitely intend to use that to my advantage in the future. Unfortunately, all of the girls that I danced with last night were about to leave for summer break on Monday, so there wasn't any long term potential there until we get back, and I didn't know how to transition back to my car or campus (mainly because I wasn't planning to bring anyone home that night and hadn't worked out logistics). However, I did manage to build some good rapport, and I think that I've manage to nail the mysterious stranger routine in this context, so from here, I just need to work out logistics so when we have this event at the beginning of next semester, I'll be ready.
 

Chase

Chieftan
Staff member
tribal-elder
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
6,170
TE-

Fun stuff. Seems like you've found a good niche for yourself.

Thinkingenigma said:
I immediately gravitated towards a tall thin blonde wearing a red tank top and cowboy boots. She was just standing off to the side and didn't bring a partner, so I walked up, took her hand, and told her to dance with me.

I quickly realized that she had never danced before, so I taught her the basic steps, and since she was a quick learner, we were quickly able to move to the more advanced stuff. Within about 10 min, she was spinning and flying all over the place. At that point, sparks were flying, especially when I started deep diving during the dance. Eventually, she was so dizzy from all of the twirling that I made her take a break before she fell over. Unfortunately, she didn't understand that I wanted to continue talking to her, so she went back to talk with her friends. I think she though I was suggesting we take a break so I could dance with other girls.

With this kind of thing, instead of taking a break and kicking her back to her friends, try using the break to escalate things instead - e.g., "Okay, you're doing awesome and learning REALLY fast, but we need to take a break before you fall down and lay all the blame on me. Let's go grab a little air - come on," then go drag her out to some stairs or a bench outside and sit and talk a bit and cool off. Set up a date / plan to see her again later then and there, or see if you can pull her out to your car after you've sat and talked a few minutes if those sparks are still flying, "C'mere, let me show you this [whatever]," => go to car.

Thinkingenigma said:
After dancing with her, I danced with two beautiful girls who had never done any swing dancing, but had a lot of experience in ballet.

[snip]

The fact that they are roommates that are super close to each other brings some interesting possibilities.

!

Well, get your pulling and logistics down first, and then those interesting possibilities start getting a bit more possible... ;)

Thinkingenigma said:
However, I did manage to build some good rapport, and I think that I've manage to nail the mysterious stranger routine in this context, so from here, I just need to work out logistics so when we have this event at the beginning of next semester, I'll be ready.

Seems like you're killing it there, TE.

Logistics separates the charmers from the lovers. They're not much fun to plan when you're new to it, but it's worth taking 30 minutes to sit down and figure out your logistics for any date or situation you'll be in regularly so you've got this planned out. It's kind of like having a condom with you - you won't need it every time you go out, but it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it... makes all the difference.

You're doing great.

Chase
 
you miss 100% of the shots you don't take
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