Joy of staying upright

June 4, 2006

12:30 PM. My phone is beeping. I apparently missed a call from Sergio. I call him back, and he asks if I’m going to SOS tonight. I hadn’t really thought about it so I tell him I’ll call back in about half an hour. I like the idea – if nothing else because I wanted to get opinions on several subjects from Sergio and the drive to and back from London offered a perfect opportunity. Also, there won’t be a lot of opportunity to pick his brain this month.

1:30 PM. I tried calling Sergio back but did not get connected, so I e-mail him back in affirmative. Over next hour or so, we agreed upon departure time, etc (Sergio preferred to skip the lessons). We also talked about contacting some people we know to see if they’re interested, but no luck.

6:50 PM. I pick up Sergio and start my drive to London. It’s rather warm so I am regretting not having brought a short-sleeved shirt. Most of the drive to London was spent talking about some fundamentals as well as music Sergio had on his iPod or about on-2. There was much of Los Flamboyan and Johnny Colon. Other songs of interest included Pico Swing (cousin of Picadillo) and Caravan (sharing middle-eastern sounding theme to Pirana probably originating from something else, maybe a movie [added later - no… I think it’s a cartoon - Looney Tunes maybe? - but there's probably a source that is even older... added even later - it goes back to Duke Ellington in 1930's]). Among other things I learned that follower’s step is the dominant step on-2 unlike on-1.

8:20 PM. Arrival at Tavistock Place.

8:45 PM. Sergio has had three dances already while I’ve done nothing but sit and change my shoes. I told him that I never recall an occasion where he started dancing before I did – let alone be in a situation where he’s three up on total number of dances. I’m having a great time greeting people – shaking hands with familiar faces like Johnny, Tamambo and Mauro and making eye contact, waving, etc with women I know from Cambridge and London. I think I spotted maybe six women I associate with Cambridge including Serap and Vera. Just seeing many of these familiar faces put smile to my face. I am especially delighted at having spotted and having been spotted by Diane (not her real name – I don’t think she’d mind about me using her real name but I like it this way). Who knows why (and I certainly am not going to complain) but she’s an absolute delight to talk and interact with – in large part because she seems to enjoy talking with me or find me interesting as a person at least. Even though this is only the fifth occasion where I’ve seen her (and in the first one, we didn’t talk or dance or interact in any way), I talk to her as if she were my best friend. It’s so bizarre. I also look at people dancing – most of them look as if they’re struggling a little too much. In retrospect, it may have been better to have stayed seated because I should have known that I would become one of those people who I saw struggling. Of course, there never was a credible chance of a successful strike.

8:50 PM to 10:30 PM. I have my first dance. Not bad. Unfortunately, most of the dances thereafter ranged from slightly better to truly awful. I found more than half of the dances to be deeply disappointing. Only in about half dozen dances did I feel that my partner and I were dancing to the same speed. I probably should have kept my dances considerably simpler perhaps. My best guess is that only two of my dance partners tonight were up to follow most if not all of my leads. However, one such dance felt a little too detached while I was goofing around and talking in another. Sergio suggested that I should try to end the evening on a good note. I ended up dancing with my first partner (although it was not the last song) as my last dance. Again, it was alright – not great but more or less enjoyable and on-time. I decided not to take any more risk thereafter.

10:40 PM. After another chat with Diane (who after assuring me that I am not getting worse and that I was on-time with her blamed the summer heat on many people not being on-time – interestingly, Sergio later made an independent observation that hot weather really makes people heavy on their feet because their feet get wet from sweat?!?!), I left Mary Ward Hall with mixed feelings – the dances were generally disappointing but everything else (e.g. talking with Diane, Vera and others) was quite nice.

10:45 PM. Drive back to Cambridge involved a non-stop gab-a-thon with all kind of topics being touched upon. I learned about some methods of leading from closed hold, which I found absolutely fascinating.

A quote I liked – “I like to change all the time.”

Another quote - "I think of three hours as a minimum."