I learned how to swing dance tonight. So now I'm a hep cat. Or something.

It was cool, except for one thing. They said ahead of time (on the Web site actually) that they subscribe to rotating dance partners through the class. And that's great and fine. They want you to learn how to lead and follow with multiple partners because "it's a social dance," and then you can go and ask anyone who knows how to swing to dance. That's great and fine and dandy. I'm not against rotating partners.

The problem is, during the entire 1:15 class, I danced with Gina for about two whole minutes. I wasn't too happy and Gina wasn't either. I had to learn the basic step with some chick whose name I already forgot. I made the comment to Gina's roommate and Gina that they should have done it this way: Instead of having us rotate from the moment we partnered up, they should have let us learn the step with the partner of our choice. That way, it wouldn't have been so damned "tense." Half the girls I learned with were all tense and uptight and stuff--and that made me a bit uptight. It's hard to dance the right way when you feel that way. Whereas, Gina and I would have had a built-in comfort level. We could have focused on the dancing instead of the awkwardness of not knowing the other person. And as high-schoolish as that sounds, everyone knows that it happens and that you'd be that way too.

So anyway, I got the basic step down, though there are flaws. I guess next week we're learning the "good stuff," turns and whatnot, or something like that. Again, it's fun, but I sure hope I get to dance with Gina more than I did this week. Especially once we start learning the up-close dancing...if this was awkward--the dancing at arm's length--for some of the people there, getting closer is not going to be a picnic for them. So it would be easier to learn with someone you're comfortable with. Otherwise, that will take away from it ever so slightly once again. But that's just my opinion...