Min Wye

My usual routine when I go “social” dancing consists of almost non-stop dancing except for the odd song that I dont like or dont feel like dancing to, which I use to go to the mens, have a drink or have an occasional conversation. Some have argued that Im taking the “social” out of social dancing due to my non-stop dancing!

Since then, I have spoken to a few people about this and on one side of the field, some say that theres nothing wrong with that and their out to just dance and any meaningless chatter is just small talk.

On the other hand, others feel theres not enough social in social dancing and that people are too caught up with JUST dancing and theres no real substance in that.

Does that mean we are Fuck Dance Buddies and all we know each other for is to dance and once thats done, we wont see each other in any other circumstance(damn, thats harsh). Story: There was once, the power went out at one of my local clubs(this means no dancing) and everyone sat around not knowing what to say to each other because all we do is dance and not social.

Personally, I find it insanely hard to hold a conversation in a club while dancing when:
1) The music totally overpowers your own voice(unless you wish to have a very bad sorethroat the next day(which has happened)) also making it impossible to have a conversation with more than 2 parties. Im usually the one who has problems hearing, read no.9 on my 25 list of things.
2) Your conversation gets cut off when you or the other person gets asked to dance before you can even say “Salsa”.
3) You cant think over the music and all your body is moving automatically to the music.

That said, I think everyone can choose(dance or social) and if you wish to social, there are many conduscive places to do it away from the dance floor to avoid music and people asking you for a dance.

What do you think?

Bumped into this song while on Last.fm listening to the tag ‘Salsa’, since then, Ive been hooked onto Cat Empire, known most famously for their album ‘two feet’. Here is the live version of The Rhythm on youtube:

Here is the original version(music only) of the song, a fan made video is based on Xena and Gabrielle using Cat Empire’s The Rhythm:

(Dance Jargon) I really like the mix of Salsa beat(really fast salsa) mixed with cha cha in the song, the constant change in the beat and the multitude of breaks! It would be interesting to see this song played in a club and how dancers will interpret it.

And even if youre not a dancer, the song is still pretty cool! Tell me what you think?

Related External Links

• no longer there | the cat empire « the unspoken words

Tonights post doesnt really have any direction, mainly because I had a really good blog post idea but yoga tonight totally blanked out my mind and unfortunately, the blog post idea went too. Yes, you read right…yoga, it was actually my first class too. Honestly, the only thing I knew about yoga was from my aunts back in Malaysia, doing poses that had funny names….animal names, like crane and turtle pose.

And actually, that was exactly what we did except it wasnt as corny as it first sounded, I actually came out enjoying and benefitting from the “dog”, “baby” and “cat” poses that relate to the different ways your body is positioned. By the end of the whole session, I was so relaxed that I actually fell asleep in a matter of seconds! Even the boring lectures at uni could never put me to sleep that fast!

Now, what could yoga possibly benefit my dancing? Well, not only will it increase my flexibility, it will also break the stress muscles accumulated from dancing and improve my posture while dancing. Not to mention, sometime in the future, I might be able to contend with Mary-Grace’s undeniably impossible spins:

Mary and Neil at the October Salsa Fest

by spinning in a pose like this!

Maybe I could spin in this pose one day

Till then, I will continue dreaming during yoga classes.