So, last year, I was pretty damn antisocial. It's not that I didn't like people, it's just that I have always been really shy, and coming to college made it worse to the point where I would go the whole day without saying a word to anyone. Social interaction terrified me. Thankfully, I had Gandalf, my super awesome best friend and roommate, and Asterisk, via the internets, to keep me sane.
However, during Spring quarter, I went to swing dancing club with one of the few friends I had made over the course of the year (I give the credit for that mostly to him; I didn't even want to talk to him at first). And damn. It was amazing. I danced for years as a girl, but I stopped at around fourth grade. I hadn't really danced since then. But my body remembered, and I fell into the rock steps and the spins with ease. It felt more natural than walking, it felt like that was how my body was built to move, like I had just been trudging through and this, this was being awake. Now, I'm not saying I was even particularly good at first, but that didn't really matter. It was just the feeling.
It also had the upside of being a social dance. So, by way of swing, I met, touched, and trusted, if only for a few minutes, people I had never met before. I small talked, I smiled, and I grew more comfortable in my own skin and more comfortable with other people. I won't go into my issues with men, but let me say, swing helped quite a bit. I waited each week for swing, and left feeling happier and more myself than any other time.
Now, I do salsa and tango as well as swing. Three out of the seven days of my week are spent dancing, and if I can, I fit more time in. The connection, the trust, the music, just for that briefest moment when your lead is truly good and his (or her) intentions are clear, that time when your bodies move to create something beautiful, that is worth all the bad leads and sweaty palms and accidental foot-steppings.
Plus, now I can talk to strangers without feeling like I'm going to die.
--Jazz
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