One Good Thing

simple pleasures: ‘D’ is for ‘dancing’ (badly)

Nietzsche said that God was dead, but he can’t have been completely uptight, because he also once remarked: ‘We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.’

I think the guy was onto something.

Dancing is joyous and healthy and doesn’t even cost a cent! Yesss. The best things in life are free, doesn’t the saying go? And this is especially true no matter whether we’re speaking of the waltz, the tango, or bustin’ some moves to Kanye while washing the dishes.

Which is completely normal.

I have always loved to dance: my mother sent me along to various classes all throughout both primary and high school. As a little tot, I studied ballet and tap dancing, which was enormously fun. (Except for that one time when I didn’t chalk the metal plates on the bottoms of my tap shoes and I slipped on the polished wooden floors of the concert hall during a rehearsal. These things are apt to happen to me. Or, rather, I am apt to doing these things.) When I was in high school, my sister and I learnt Highland (Scottish) dance at the local Bluebell School of Dance. Fine. We weren’t Thistles, but we sure were fit. All that kilt-flapping and hopping about tends to make me want to giggle hysterically now, but I had calves of steel in 2001, ladies and gentleman. Calves of steel. I doubt that I could lurch through a single four-step fling nowadays without my lungs exploding or my legs simply melting into pools of overworked muscle.

It was hard work indeed. Some weeks, I used to peel off my shoes after a class and grimace at the blood-soaked toes of my socks. On occasion, I would almost pass out mid-lesson. Once, I even vomited from exhaustion. But dancing was the only ‘sport’ that I was ever any good at, so I kept going despite the blood, light-headedness, and infrequent barfing.

I still have my leather jiffies up in a box in the cupboard somewhere. Sadly, though, I don’t dance any more. Not formally. Not publicly. No. I’m more inclined towards the moves-bustin’-to-Kanye that I described earlier. Being a generally kind and thoughtful person, I don’t feel it’s right to subject others to these culturally insensitive performances. Even the cats look alarmed from time to time.

However, bad dancing can be the funnest dancing of all, in my opinion. Dancing should make one laugh. Dancing should leave the dancer puffed, either through exertion or sheer hilarity. I find that Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s ‘Push it’ or Jamiroquai’s ‘Little L’ are particularly excellent tunes for encouraging (bad) dancing.

If you’re still not convinced of the simple pleasures inherent in dancing (badly), how about a smattering of Voltaire on the subject? That guy was also pretty smart. He wrote: ‘Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.’

Amen, bro. Amen.

PS Dance like nobody’s watching: mall

Tagged with: dancing, simple pleasures

Categorised as: simple pleasures