Excellent! I have several questions.
First of all, how did this happen?
Did somebody drag you to a dance? Did you see a flyer somewhere? Did a friend tell you it was fun? Did you watch a bunch of people spinning around a dance floor and think, “I could do that!”?
You see the dancing and it looks like fun. And it is fun.
You learn a few calls, and then you want to learn a few more. You go to your first dance, and then you start wondering when the next one is. You meet a few people, and suddenly you’re saying things like, “Oh, we’re going to that dance next Friday. Are y’all going?”
And then it’s a dance two hours away… And then it’s a two-day trip with dancing until your feet are ready to fall off.
You’ll find yourself eventually sitting in a car with a couple of other square dancers, headed toward some town you’ve only heard of on a square dance flyer. Just because it’s your favorite caller or someone said that someone said that the people there are fun to dance with.
At some point it becomes a lifestyle, not a particularly glamorous lifestyle, mind you. There’s usually a lot of driving involved. You might have a section of closet labeled “Square Dance Clothes” and shoes that are good for dancing and shoes that are not good for dancing.
You will eventually develop opinions about dance floors and how wood is nice and carpet is a liability. You may find yourself checking how many steps you got during a dance and being genuinely impressed that you managed to walk that far while essentially traveling in circles.
But you’ll also start knowing people. You can walk into a dance hall hundreds of miles from home and recognize somebody. You can go months without seeing a person and then run into them at a convention and pick up the conversation as if you saw them yesterday. You can visit a club for the first time and somehow know half the room.
It’s a strange little world we’ve built. And I absolutely mean that as a compliment.
Square dancing has this wonderful ability to turn “people I met at a dance” into “people I’m going to make plans for next weekend with.” It turns Saturday nights into road trips. It turns strangers into friends. It turns a random town on the map into someplace you’ve been, because you went there to dance.
And, if you’re really lucky, you discover that you actually love the dancing itself.
Some of us like the fast-paced energy, some like the brain work, some like the people, some like the exercise, some like it all.
There’s something for everyone in this one activity.
Eventually you’re driving across state lines, keeping up with dance schedules, recognizing people in hotel lobbies and at gas pumps, packing dance shoes for the weekend, and wondering how you ever thought this was going to be a simple little hobby.
So if you’re thinking about trying square dancing, go ahead.
We’ll teach you the calls. We’ll help you find your place in the square. We’ll introduce you to a few people that you weren’t expecting to meet.
Just don’t blame us when, six months from now, you’re the one telling somebody else, “There’s a really good dance coming up. It’s only two hours away.”
And that’s how “maybe I’ll try it…” turns into your favorite thing to do.