Ivy: Not the poison kind.

So like I do on a regular basis I went dancing this last Saturday night. The dance was Fusion, a mix of swing, blues and tango music is played and you dance. I enjoy this once a month dance a lot. I would say overall since the beginning of Fusion I have made it to about half of them give or take a few. I have written about them in the past.
This Saturday started out with me helping the girl and some friends put fence posts up. It took all day long. We started at 10 am and finished around 8:30 pm. By the end of it I hurt. Not too bad but I was sore and tired. I thought about skipping the dance. If fact I thought long and hard about skipping it. I do this frequently. I will set a date with myself and as the dance comes up I wiggle out of going like last Tuesday night for blues dancing. With no Sea Scouts that night I should have gone but I didn't. The best way to get me to dance is to commit to someone else that I will be there. So for this dance I had only really made vague references to going to the organizer. Even though I hadn't fully told anyone I was coming I still used the vague references to force myself into going. I had plenty of reasons (excesses not to.) My back hurt, my wrists hurt from digging postholes and swinging a 3# sludge hammer all day, I was tired, I didn't have any friends going for sure... The list goes on. So somehow I talked my self into going. There ended up being a bunch of friends/acquaintances there.
So by now you are wondering why I titled this post the way I did. Well that'’s for later. I got there put my dancing shoes on. It takes me a while these days since the back of my shoes have be giving me blisters so I have to put mole skin on my heels before hand. I went out and sat and watched for a while (this is normal for me, I like to get a feel for who I want to dance with.) When a friend of mine got done dancing I walked over and talked to her for a while. We chatted about life and the days and weeks events a bit. I enquired as to whom the follow was that her fiancee was dancing with. She told me and I thought I had danced with her a long time ago but she was from out of town so who knows. It looked to me from the sidelines that she was one of the best Swing/Blues follows on the floor. I made a note to dance with her later. I danced with the friend for two songs and really enjoyed it. A good start to the evening. I danced with all my favorite follows and one dancer I had never seen before. She was a tango dancer. I asked her to blues dance and she did well for never having done it before. She was notable because of the red dress she was wearing and her tango skills. It was a tight fitting red dress with two white sections like pleats in the skirt part of the dress. Along with her being cute the dress was striking. If you were there you know who I am talking about. I had talked with one of the earlier follows about the dress. Overall it got a lot of attention. Not sure that was what she was going for since when I asked her to dance she was about as shy a person as anyone I have ever asked to dance. At this point you are thinking Ah! This is Ivy. Your wrong.
Ivy...
I finished a dance and headed back towards the restroom area through the room they put drinks and snacks. She asked me to dance, I said yes, we danced. Wow, what a dancer. I instantly knew I was going to have fun. I knew it was going to be a great dance. Now there were better follows there that night but..Nonene that my style of leading worked so well with. Then came the end of the song. We started the end of song ritual. Thanks, that was nice, and so on. I asked her to dance again to the next song. I wasn't done. It had been a while since blues had worked so well for me. It was like dancing with my girlfriend, in that we had a familiar connection (for you non dancers that is the communication between the dancers via the hands and body.) On top of that it was new and she was a more experienced blues dancer. My rhythm was on, and my lead was good. Not that I should take much credit. She should have it all. All I did was show up and lead the dance. She made it amazing. Now I have danced for a few years by now but I am not a pro. I have a few moves and make them work for me. This was the next level. We danced and people watched. I am used to having beginners watch a bit but this was a room full of good dancers. Everywhere I looked there were eyes on us. This blows my mind. I felt like a klutz with nothing going wrong. It all worked and it was strange. It was also very fun. I could have been in an empty room with her and I and music and it still would have been that much fun. The second song ended and we parted ways. She had lots of warm things to say about the dance. I thought to myself "She is a nice person." In retrospect I think it was more her saying what she was thinking then what she thought I would like to hear. I danced one or two more songs and sat out a few others. A tango set or two came and went. I danced at least three more songs with her by the end of the night. They all went well. I tried a lot of fun things and most went well. We talked about her summer and her going back to Huston and her husband. She said she was here on a law internship.
I have decided I need a few more move/turns to round out my portfolio. I think I will break out the videos sometime soon. I got a good dance in with the organizer of the dance witch is hard since she is always so busy. It was nice to have a chance to dance with her. I hope she will be out this Tuesday also so I can get a few in without interruptions.