Dancing Along

From Frank Miyashita, Enchanted Lake

Took awhile for me to get it. "Smooth" is the American version of Standard in International Style of Dance. American includes every dance except the Quickstep. And there have been various attempts to include the Peabody with no success. In competition, the main difference between Smooth and Standard is that in Smooth, you may make use of the various open positions present in Latin dancing, or even break apart altogether and do side-by-side or interactive stuff. It is similar to International show dancing, but without the lifts.

"As we grow older, we realize that it is less important to have

lots of friends and more important to have real ones."

"The Impossible Dream" by Jim Nabors

Since the American smooth has only four dances, one would think that it is slightly simpler, but there is a reason that they left out the Peabody. Of all the styles of Ballroom, the Peabody (similar to the quickstep) is by far the most risky. Not only do dancers fly around the floor at lightning speed like the standard dancers, but they also dance apart with limbs flying in all places, like the Latin dancers. On Oahu, no one dances the Peabody.

"I'll Remember You" by Don Ho

With these open positions, the couple doesn't have the maneuverability that a standard dancer has, and so floorcraft is a much bigger challenge. They both require large ballrooms, which puts them in almost the same category as Internationals. Our group the Cultural dancers are much different and we have a more social reason for dancing.

It seems pretty evident that a glass of wine is good for us.

Wow, think of what a whole bottle would do!