Bal Me, Brother, With a Solid 4

He Goes

"Goodbye!" says my dance partner to another couple as they leave the classroom. "It was nice meeting you!" Then, sotto voce but in the same sing-song tone she adds: "it was weird rubbing myself against you!"

We've come to learn balboa in the kitchen of a pub in north London, our feet scuffling over the checkerboard tiles - or rather tile, since we're trying to follow the teacher's imperative: "smaller steps, smaller. If you think you're doing small enough steps already, try to make them smaller."

It's a strange dance, balboa - although there's nothing unusual in its parts. I've danced ballroom, I'm used to a more upright hold from waltz, I'm used to a close hold from tango, I'm used to the way in rumba one tries to slide the feet across the floor rather than lifting them. But all of these things together are new to me, and grafting them onto the songs that I already know and the 8-beat phrasing of swing dancing feels odd.

Everyone in the class, as it rotates, asks whether I do lindy, and when I say yes and ask them the same question they nod. Balboa is one of those specialist dances, it seems, that no-one ever comes to first. They hear about it from other swing dancers, or they see a couple pressed in close hold on a crowded dance floor, hardly moving at all as their feet skip to some high-tempo song, and they ask a friend: "what's that?" When I was back in Dublin I used to have a rule - when I saw more than one couple dancing balboa, there was no point in me trying to keep up with the music.

It feels odd being so upright to music that I'm used to dancing to in a more relaxed, bent-legged style (although I admit that when I get lazy I tend to stand upright, but balboa still seems more rigid than that). It feels awkward to me not to be able to automatically adjust the hold to one that I think will be more useful. I wonder, while I'm dancing with my dance partner later on, if the kitchen staff watching us are enjoying the dance or not. I've heard balboa called a dancers' dance, and it's easy to see why - from an observer's point of view there's none of the exuberance of lindy. I can watch balboa and appreciate its cleanness and the precision of the steps, but I can't imagine a crowd ever going mad in the way they would while watching lindy-hoppers doing a lamppost aerial.

To the dancers, though, even those like me who are capable of essentially the basic and perhaps one other move, it does feel like a dance (this may seem strange, but there are dances - Slow Foxtrot is one for me - that just feel like going through the motions, an exam more than a dance). I struggle through the class, but in the practise time afterwards, reunited with my partner, we get it right - so right in fact that the teacher comes over to compliment her on her footwork. I don't think I'll be giving up lindy in its favour, but I can see myself enjoying a few balboa dances a night when prevailing conditions allow...

Rocky: Totally nailed that basic step

She Goes

Ah, Balboa. *Stares off into distance in thoughtful manner*

I can be led into it, this foot origami, weight shift trickery, but after a taster lesson I actually found it harder to do! Although I'm not sure if that reflects worse on me or my teachers.

I'm shooting in the dark with this post as it's Keith doing a course without me. Sniff. S'fine. This is what happens when you encourage someone to try something new... They try it with someone new too! But I think the follow he's doing it with has a height advantage on me. Fair play.

I completely agree that it's a dancer's dance. Having a bal-breather mid way through a super fast song can be a life saver! And it's also useful as a styling point. I think. But I think the most useful part of the dance, as a whole, is that it helps you wrap your mind around body leading. There's no scope for sneak peeks at the feet!

It also seems terribly English to look at! 'Ah yes, we are pressed up against each other, ah, yes, ahem, oh lovely following there, yes, la la la, ahem, yes, lovely weather we're meant to be having this weeekend', and so on and so forth. Go on, narrate the next bal dance you watch. 

It doesn't set my heart on fire the way lindy or blues does. There's less scope for 'conversation' (in my experience so far) because you're constantly close hold and so focused on your core and weight that there leaves little else. (Which explains why dancers doing bal look so bloody serious! They're concentrating!)

Keith- can you show me what you've learnt when you come back to our regular night? ;)