Research suggests that we humans are happiest when we are succeeding at something that we can just barely accomplish. I have been contradancing for 38 years and I keep inventing and learning new flourishes, dips/ swing move interjections, putting in extra spins, running between lines and conspiring with fellow dancers to alter order and gender and create new interactions with defacto trail buddies that 'weren't in the dance'. The only limit to challenging yourself is not straying into being late and staying within the bounds of what your particular fellow dancer will enjoy which means that there is constant strategic intellectual exercise as well. The happiness of contradancers is infective and the inclusiveness is inspiring.
As a biologist I believe (with all due modesty and suspicion of teleology) that life evolved for ~4 billion years on earth precisely so that there could be contradancing :). On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Sam Whited <s...@samwhited.com> wrote: > On 09/23/2013 06:12 AM, Jeanette Mill wrote: > > Simply answer the question - what made you addicted to contra? > > When I first started, it was probably the fact that I couldn't stop > smiling the entire time I was dancing (or for several hours afterwards). > I was terrible, kept breaking the line, didn't understand half the > caller's instructions, etc. but I still couldn't stop smiling. > > It might also be the fact that I `just got' the swing (even if I didn't > get most of the other moves). People asked me how long I'd been dancing, > and told me what a great swing I had even though I'd never actually been > to a dance before; it was nice to know that contra was actually simple > enough that all I had to do was walk around someone and they'd think I > was relatively good at it unlike, say, Swing dancing (my other favorite > form of dance) which took me days and days to even get the basic down. > I've seen this in a lot of other new dancers since then; I ask them how > long they've been dancing only to find that this is their first time and > they `just get' what I now know as the concept of `giving weight'. > > After I had danced for a while and branched out into other kinds of > dancing, I realized that I also liked contra because no one takes it too > seriously (well, a few people I know do, but I make a point of not > dancing with them). You can cock about, experiment, break half the line, > or just make something up and as long as you can run back and swing your > partner when the caller says too it will all be okay and you'll have a > good time (I know a lot of people will disagree with that one; but it's > one of the things that makes me love contra, so there you are). > > I also love the fact that you sweat a lot. I tried ECD a couple of > times, and while I enjoyed the people, and thought a lot of the dances > were really interesting, I couldn't help but wonder why I'd want to do > something that didn't leave me sweaty and breathless afterwards. Lots of > people I know love that sort of thing, but it wasn't for me. It felt too > `delicate' (there are also lots of other issues that made me not > especially love ECD, but they're rather offtopic). > > Contra is like driving a Pagani Zonda that's thinking of new and > interesting ways of killing you every 5 seconds, and some other forms of > dance are like driving an old VW Bug: they don't go above 50 MPH, have > the engine on the wrong end of the car, and were conceived by Hitler > (that analogy made more sense in my head before I started typing it > out...). > > —Sam > > -- > Sam Whited > pub 4096R/EC2C9934 > https://samwhited.com/contact > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > call...@sharedweight.net > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
