At 09:12 AM 1/21/99 -0800, Cheryl wrote:
>Lianne says:
>>>The truth about LineDancing
>>
>>...Is that it became very popular with people who got tired of waiting
>>for partners to ask them to dance. (What a bunch of lamers, those
>>"cowboys" bellied up to the bar!)
And I know that the response to this will be "guys get tired of
asking and being turned down" -- which I can believe. But nowadays
women ask, too -- and they get turned down as well. (Maybe not as
often, but I've witnessed it with my own eyes.)
>Yeah, apparently not *enough* guys want to cuddle up and play grab-ass on
>the dance floor! Sheesh. (Or more likely, they *want* to dance -- they just
>don't *feel* like it right now...)
(And most of them know that if they tried that with anyone besides their
SO, they'd get tossed out on their ear, too.) But it's also true that
men have a hard time learning to dance. And not only do they have to
learn how to coordinate their own movements, but then they have to
"steer" (lead) the woman, too, and coordinate all her "tricks" (turns)
to the right beat. It is a pretty complex maneuver. For some reason
learning to dance comes fairly easily to most women. So I suppose,
ideally, it would work better if the roles were reversed, and the woman leads. But
that's not how it's done in couple dance. So my
interpretation of the situation is that a lot of guys give up, rather
than look a fool on the dance floor. And the women get tired of sitting around.
One thing I admire about the teenagers of today is that dancing seems
to be an "in" thing with them. Just a few years ago the dance classes
my husband and I attended would be mostly people around 40-ish. Now most
of the class is teenagers and young 20's (though all ages are there).
The kids are growing up dancing. I like that! (These are ballroom
dance classes, not country.) Another thing I admire about the young
dancers is that they aren't so rigid in their dance roles. Sometimes
same gender partners will dance together in couple dances. And some of
them are trying to learn both the lead and the follow parts.
Lianne
