Social Dancers

By Warren Chung, Waipio

Generally, in West Oahu, the ones with the worse technique in social dancing have more fun. But part of the goal of having good technique is to help our dance partners have more fun. If we just want to have fun, we don’t need good technique, just a "partner" with good technique.

"Easy Street is always a dead end or a blind alley."

But if we want our dance partners to have more fun, then "we" need good technique. There are elements of social dance that are purely social, where smiles, friendly conversation, succeeding in moving to the music and doing a few basic steps, override whether our partner is leaning on us, yanking us off balance, crushing our hand, stepping on us or whatevah. But an amount of technique that enables us to feel good and helps our partners to look good and feel good can only enhance our dance experience.

"I Love The Simple Folk" Don Ho

Some competition technique does look stilted on the social dance floor; we all know that, but a lot of the technique taught by competition coaches are things that make the dance feel more in balance, more fitting to the character of the music, and smoother to both ourselves and our partners.

The problem we face after we learn what good dance technique feels like, is that we become more sensitive to the bad habits of our partners. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but the better social dancers are adaptive rather than ignorant. Those who can’t or don’t want to learn to adapt can end up paying their professional dance instructors lots of money.

"The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise."

By Les Paul and Mary Ford

Otherwise, we stop being concerned about our partners having fun, and just concentrate on having fun ourselves; try Club dancing, or local Dance club places for Social dancing. where people tend to be less anal-retentive about "technique" but nonetheless enjoy dancing together. Fun is primary, because fun is what motivates people to "continue" dancing.

If they happen to enjoy learning tons of technique as dancers, have the money, and they want to move right into competition styles, fine - but I don’t think that’s true of most people. What else is social dancing about, if not getting enjoyment for yourself and pleasing your dance partner? Hey, I wanna dance.
Warren.

Who said? "Life is too short to drink cheap wine."