Nosey eh? ...but who doesn't love a few juicy details. Well, my name is mike and I'm a dance-a-holic. I admit it... I tap in the bathroom, I lindy in the living room, I swing at the food court in the mall... I have busy feet. One of the locals even calls me "Fred" (as in Astaire) which is a major wampum reach, but I love the idea... that average looking middle-aged guy could swoop any beautiful young women across the silver screen at will. Not bad. Hey, I'm not even middle-aged yet, and I've been told that I'm better than average looking (thanks mom)--look out fred!

At any rate, I digress. How did I get into the lindy hop business? First off, it's not a business for me, as I have a very nice day job. Just a hobby gone public. Which is good, 'cause I can keep classes cheap, and teach for just plain fun. And if there's one thing I like, it's fun.

So lindy. I was skating freestyle at the rink in York County (I'll show you my Lutz if you show me yours) when ice dancing broke out. I was skating "tangoes" and "swing dances" and such and realized that maybe I should actually try some regular dancing on say, wood, to see what that was like. So I went to the ballroom guy and learned a little mambo and a little waltz and that was cool. But since "Zoot Suit Riot" had just come out, I wanted to learn some swing. Off I went to another local ballroom guy and I learned a few swing steps and that was somewhat cooler.

Then, off I went to Glen Echo, the swing mecca of metro DC, to show all my fine new moves. But when I got on the floor the swing mecca people were doing moves which were much finer than mine. I was dancing... but these 20 somethin's in their vintage threads and black and white spectator shoes were kicking and jivin' and hoppin' and slidin' and flying thru the air and generally not doing anything I'd ever seen in *my* swing class. This is great! This is the coolest! What isssss this??

...a little web surfing and I discovered that it was called "Lindy Hop." And you couldn't learn it in a ballroom studio because it wasn't ballroom dancing. And no one taught it in Hampton Roads! Arghhh.

So I went to Richmond and took classes... I got tapes from workshops around the country... I went to workshops in DC. I took lessons from international competitors like Marcus and Barbl from Germany, Erik and Sylvia from California, and Frankie Manning (the man who invented the aerial a.k.a as "air step" in 1935 and can still do them at 85 years old) from New York. I loved it all, and I still take every class I can find, because unlike the Macarena, there's always something new to learn in Lindy Hop. It's social. It's fun. It's stylin'. And as my sister said after I took her to a no-booze studio dance in Richmond "it's as much fun as you can have on lemonade and cookies."

Join the fun!

see ya on the floor,
mike