King of Swing!

Happy Valentines Day! Though I must admit it felt more like it yesterday than today. Eric and I decided to celebrate yesterday by going out to dinner and then going dancing! It has been a couple of years since either of us have danced, well besides the crazy dancing we do around the house with the kids. We were excited to get out there and show our stuff, our flips, our twists, and me just generally flying around every where. We love to swing.

I have long loved swing dancing. It began when my older sister and her husband wanted to learn. They asked my parents to teach them some steps and I learned with my brother. It was just the basics, footwork, spins, twirls, no crazy lifts of flips yet.

That came as I would go to church dances and find other guys that knew how to dance and would learn flips and moves from them. It took a lot of bravery and maybe some stupidity on my part. Especially when I sprained my shoulder doing a move called "the backpack" with my brother. But sprained shoulder or not I continued to love to swing.

In the late 90's swing suddenly became popular, it was the in thing and this made me mad. It made me mad as I knew once it was out as trends so quickly change then people would not want to do it. Hello! Swing has been around since the 30's, I was swinging way before it became popular! But it's popularity had some benefits as more swing songs were played, more people knew what they were doing. I even took and taught swing dance classes.

Unknown to me but across the country my future husband was learning country dance. He would go out every weekend dancing. So while it was not swing at least it was something, which was good as I always said I had to marry someone that knew how to dance as I loved it.

So many years later there Eric and I were swing dancing. But now it is time for my confession, it is all smoke and mirrors. Eric and I, well we don't really know a lot of footwork, sure we do the basic step and some twists and turns but with us it is all about the flips! But it is the flips that get noticed and get people coming around and watching you. It is the flips that make people say, wow you are so good. So we will revel in our glory and keep this little secret to ourselves. But opps, I guess the cat is out of the bag.