At the behest of Omaha Jitterbug Janet, I went down to the 4th Annual Rock Ya Body swing weekend Truman State College in Kirksville, MO. It was great, good for me, and a bargain at any price (a phrase that confuses me, but I'll go with it).
Ben when down on Friday night, I went to Jitterbugs Night Out, Steve said he wanted to ride with me, so we made arrangements to meet in the morning and head down. We left at 1000 with only a fast food stop, and made it in four and a half hours. The campus was beautiful, even with the lack of greenery.
About the event: the entire weekend was $12 (not a misprint) and included three dances including a live band, several hours of instruction from Omaha Jitterbugs Brian and Josie, and lunch on Sunday. Since we got there at 1430 on Saturday we caught the last half two and a half hours of instruction, and both Saturday dances, and left after the Sunday instruction. The band, Deadwood, was a blues style band who was good, and might have been worth the cost of the weekend all by themselves.
About the scene: The dancers are wonderful, and quite adept at lindy hop, more so than the average Omaha dancer. Their styling was very cool, their footwork was solid, and they did lots of dips with the follows being very trusting. Although it seemed that Balboa was not part of their normal scene, they were quite adept at dancing close and played slow songs, which, guess what, I like a lot. The music was more blues and modern than we play in Omaha.
About the people: amazingly friendly and accommodating. I wish I had more time to spend with the people there and get to know them. I can be kind of shy, and I appreciate when I am forced out of my shell and meet new people, and then I find out how cool they are. Next trip down there will be a longer stay. I'd like to name more names, but besides Janet, there was Frankie, Becka, Krystal, and Amy who I danced with the most ... ladies, I apologize if you are not mentioned here.
What it all means to me...
I have to kind of laugh at myself. I've known I should get away from Omaha for quite a while, someplace totally different. Well I went and discovered something interesting: evidently I am a good dancer, charming, and women like me. I think my failures in life, and my failures at dating over the last few years have left me feeling undesirable. The people at Truman State were so easy going and kind that it left ME feeling lump-of-coal-to-diamond uptight.
I was half thinking on the way home that a complete change of venue, new city, new job might be in order. I doubt very much that is going to happen, but obviously getting the heck out of Dodge Street every once in a while can be liberating, and makes for really fun dancing too.
No comments:
Post a Comment