The PRO Club (huge Bellevue gym where I am a member) just opened their new Performance Center this week. It's 2 miles down the road from the main gym, in the opposite direction from my house but still not all that far away. Anyway I'm a little bit curious to check it out, and maybe try out the "sports conditioning" sessions they're promoting. Have you been there? What do you think?

The reason for my interest is that I've been quite amused and impressed by my own modest athleticism over the past couple years. It's not vanity if you understand that I was never athletic at all throughout high school and college. It was only about 2-3 years ago that I started getting more seriously into racquetball and ultimate, and now a lot of my friends and co-workers and sometimes teammates seem to perceive me as a very athletic person, which is really a new and strange identity for me.

Still, I've never trained much separately from just playing sports (a lot), and now I wonder, could I take it up another notch if I actually did put in some real, dedicated training time? I figure if I ever want to find out what I'm capable of, now is the best time to do it, before I get any older.

One reason for hesitation at the moment is that I usually try to avoid the throngs of uncommitted resolutionists that crowd the gym during the first few weeks of every January. But maybe the Performance Center would be more sane than the main gym.

I last blogged about my swing dancing passion about four months ago. Since then, I've gotten into it more than ever. Especially this month, I think my dancing prowess has improved phenomenally. While I have been taking more lessons and workshops, it's mostly because I've been going out dancing two or three times a week recently. After dancing enough to become comfortable leading all the different moves that I've learned in classes for the past year, I'm gradually discovering an ability to go far beyond the simplicity of just stringing together the class moves in random order.

Apparently, dancing is better when done to the music -- who knew? Okay, everyone knows that, but to a beginning dancer it's really hard to actually listen to the music while at the same time thinking about all the other things you need to do to make the dance work. More than anything else, the ability to listen to and interpret the music in my dancing has made me feel like I've moved beyond being a beginner. While it helps that I've heard the more popular songs in the genre a few times now, some predictable patterns can even be pulled out of an unfamiliar song by an attentive listener. (My musical experience and music theory education from high school helps a little too.) It can be as simple as doing some slower slinky moves during the more mellow parts of a song, and throwing out big flashy moves for the crescendo. And while I can't get it right every time, it feels really great to hit a big accent or "break" in the song with a corresponding dance move -- and to lead my partner to do it with me!

Recently, I'm also starting to experiment with interesting footwork and other variations that fit in between or in the middle of other moves. Lindy hop as a dance style is very influenced by the improvisational spirit of the jazz music it is danced to. (Swing music is related to or a sub-genre of jazz.) So playful variations and improvisations around the basic structure and style are highly valued. Maybe this is somewhat true for other dance styles, but I think even more so for lindy hop. Anyway, some of my experimental moves work and I remember them for later, and some of them don't and I just keep on dancing. I think certain patterns and preferences I use now are starting to give me my own distinctive style which, I hope, will help me stand out in small ways from the other leads. I know there are still a lot of things I can improve on though.

I've never been a socially precocious individual, so you may find it a bit strange that I would choose to go hang out with a bunch of strangers all the time. Maybe that aspect was a bit uncomfortable to me at first, but it mostly doesn't feel like that anymore. Because when you see, and dance with, the same strangers every week, they're no longer strangers. While I can't say I've made any close friends yet, I have gotten to know several people reasonably well (mostly women, for obvious reasons). When I walk into, for instance, the Century Ballroom on a social dance night, I feel right at home and it's great to see and be greeted by all the familiar faces of the other regulars. The whole swing dance community is very friendly and welcoming. I didn't have that experience at all when I used to go salsa dancing in previous years.

It's very nice that a there are a lot of swing dancers around my age. This is true not only in the Seattle scene but across the country, and it's partially due to the great swing revival of the late 90's, which was right around our college years. (If nothing else, you may remember the famous Gap 'Khakis swing' commercials, or the movie Swingers, from that era.) Back then, neo-swing bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and The Brian Setzer Orchestra became phenomenally popular, and lots of college kids took up swing dancing. I remember when Rich, a college friend/roommate, got into swing dancing in Saint Louis during that time, and he's still at it. Sadly, I wasn't convinced to join him at the time, but now I know what I was missing. Anyway, while swing today is not nearly as big as it was a decade ago, there is a good-sized community of dedicated people who mostly started in college back then and have continued to bring in others around their age, as well as introduce the dance to a slightly younger crowd.

So there are a lot of college-age dancers too, at least at the weekly Century all-ages dances on Sunday nights. Some of them can dance pretty well, though it seems like there's a constant cycle of young newbies who try it briefly and don't stick with it. Once I got beyond the point where I felt like a newbie myself, I used to not enjoy dancing with follows who didn't really know what they were doing. However, as my skills and experience improved further, my attitude on that has changed. I've found that as long as my partner knows the absolute basics, I can lead a variety of simpler moves well enough to really show her a good time. On the slower songs, I might even be able to throw in enough slinky musicality in there to make her nearly swoon! :) Yeah it's a bit of an ego boost, but also if that helps to convince more follows to stick with swing dancing, I am doing my part to bolster the community -- and I'm tipping the lead/follow ratio just a little bit in my favor. Sure it still feels great to dance with the good dancers (although it can be intimidating if she's a local superstar), but variety is also good so there's no reason for dance snobbery.

I'm afraid I have to admit that if I was talking about dating, college girls might be getting a bit too young for me. With the reality of me being in my late-late twenties now, they might be a full decade younger than me! Wow, I don't feel that old. And actually, they probably don't think I am either. I've been told before that I look a few years younger than I am, and several times this year I've been asked if I go to college around here. What do you think -- am I that young-looking? While it might have been annoying when I was 21 and looked 17, I don't think I'll mind any more.

Dancing is not dating though -- I can have fun with a broad age-range of partners. While the prospect of finding a date with someone who shares a common interest is a nice side-benefit of the activity, it's not at all what keeps me coming back for more. There have just been so many nights when after several hours of dancing (and a bit of socializing mixed in), the music stops and the lights come up, and I think, wow, I had such an awesome time tonight, and it ended too soon, and when can I come back and do it again?!

I originally learned a bit of swing & lindy hop dancing about 5 years ago. That was, I guess, right on the tail end of the great American swing craze of the late nineties. I remember that it was starting to be fun, but I never really learned enough to feel comfortable social-dancing. More recently, last year I took a lot of salsa lessons. Salsa is really popular these days, at least around here, and several of my friends are decent salsa dancers. Now and then I would go to social salsa dances either with friends or on my own. I was reasonably good at it, but I was never really passionate about it.

Starting last fall, I decided to give swing another chance. I took several lindy hop lessons with Julie, starting over at the beginning. While she suspended lessons this spring -- and moved away :( -- I have kept at it. Allow me to boast, now, that I'm getting pretty good at it. I know all the basics and a good variety of moves and variations, so that I can spend a lot of time on the dance floor without too much boring repetition. Now and then I get compliments for giving a solid lead. While I might know enough to seem impressive to a swing newbie, I'm very far from some of the outstanding dancers. I'm having tons of fun, I'm hooked, and I want more!

I've been going to social swing dances at the Century Ballroom nearly every week recently. While I have fun going on my own and find plenty of nice people to dance with, it would be cool if I had some friends to go out with sometimes. There are a few people I sort of know because I've danced with them a lot and talked a bit, but I haven't found a group to really hang out and go out with. So if you're reading this and you're looking for a fun, active, social activity, give swing a try! I assure you that anyone can do it! (And it's more fun than salsa, trust me.) I'll even offer free lessons; I'm sure I could do a decent job of teaching the basics now.

Earlier this month I suffered a relapse of ultimitus, which forced me join the DiscNW winter league. So last Saturday I played ultimate in the snow! If you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it. We played on about two inches of fluffy white padding over an artifical turf field. It was a slip-slidin' good time -- there's nothing like drifting for 3 yards after laying out to catch a long huck!

I had the accidental foresight to bring a bright orange disc. Typically about 95% of ultimate discs you catch are white, with text/logo depicting the ultimate team/event where the discs where given out. But when everything around you is covered in white, it's a bit visually challenging to chase something that's just a slightly different shade of white.