Friday 13 February 2009

That's right, we're going to learn the Lindy Hop


For Valentines Day Matthew gave me a trip to Madrid, what a wonderful husband. My gift to Matthew was taking him to a Lindy Hop dance class. I have always wanted to learn how to do this dance and I thought that it would be something fun to do together. One of things that I love about Matthew is that he loves to dance (usually after many pints and Sambucas) and that he is always open to trying something new. I thought that we could learn how to Lindy hop together and it would be something fun to do as a couple and we would meet some new people in London.

I have a friend back in Minneapolis who is the queen of Lindy hop so I sent her a FB message to see if she knew anyone who danced in London. I was looking for a recommendation of a good place to go for some lessons. It turned out that she knew a guy called Jamie Cameron, who lives in London and he was nice enough to send me an email and recommend a good dance night. He sent me a very nice email and even recommended a good Japanese restaurant near one of the dance venues. We are looking forward to meeting him and going to that restaurant. I haven't had any Japanese food in a long time.

Tonight we went out to a dance night, called the Swing Cellar at the Brooks Green Hotel not far from our house. It was a beginners dance class followed by dancing. Matthew and I thought it would a good idea to go to something like this first where we could have a little lesson and then watch other people. Matthew wanted to see if it was something that he would like and I am happy to say that he did.

It was an hour long class and it was hard. They taught us a Charleston kick step and a few other moves. I think the class was more for people who had a basic level understand of Lindy hop and wanted to learn a few new steps every week. We were a bit out of our league, but it was fun and we made the effort to give it a go. We are going to start going to a series of lessons, which start tomorrow. We'd like to go to a class with all beginners and learn the basics. It was a lot of fun and I always love doing something new with Matthew.

I was telling him on the way home that the nice thing about being at the class is that you kind of forget about everything else that's going on in your life and you can just focus on the music and dancing. I forgot that I was in London. It's sometimes nice just to lose yourself in the moment.

I am excited about learning how to dance with Matthew. There are a lot of cool events all around London to go to and surprisingly one of Matthew's friends Woody is thinking of learning as well. It gives me something to look forward and a good reason to keep going to the gym. To get in shape for the dancing. It was a fun first attempt and I look forward to our lesson tomorrow night. Soon we'll be known around London as the hep cat and swing chick. Nice.




2 comments:

  1. By the way, there's a blog by another Minnesotan, living in the UK. You might enjoy it. Here's a link
    http://notfromaroundhere.wordpress.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just got a message from Iota telling me to come here, there can't be that many Minnesotans over here, can there? Do get in touch!

    ReplyDelete

 
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