View Full Version : Weirdest character you've ever danced with?
pygmalion
07-01-2004, 08:19 PM
Who is the strangest person you've ever danced with?
Mine was a gentleman who was recovering from a life-threatening brain injury. He was up and dancing, which is great. He just didn't GET it. So I, and almost everybody else he danced with, spent a lot of time explaining things to him in group classes.
Don't get me wrong. I was aware of the blessing that his life was. My brother also had a brain injury, and I wish he could dance. But this guy was WEIRD, in capital letters. He could barely speak clearly. He was a rough lead. It took five or six or more explanations for him to get really basic paterns, and so on. But I gladly danced with him, just to celebrate life, if that makes any sense.
So who's the strangest, weirdest, most Addams Family, person you've ever danced with?
dancin_feet
07-01-2004, 08:42 PM
A guy at our studio is extremely nervous. When you dance with him he looks straight at you and licks his lips a lot. Gives a lot of women the creeps. In between dances he strolls back and forth along the edge of the dancefloor just staring at people.
I know it is probably because he is a nervous person, and I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it is really weird and creeps a lot of people out (myself included). :evil:
cocodrilo
07-01-2004, 09:21 PM
A Japanese guy I know. He knows all the steps, but has no sense of style whatsoever. He likes to do all those arm-over-head complicated moves, which he doesn't execute smoothly, knotting my hair in his arms and hands and swinging me wildly around the floor(is this SALSA?!)!!! Aside from that, the guy sweats BIG TIME, which is OK at the beginning of the evening but he apparently doesn't wear deodorant!!! :shock: (Note: Most Japanese do not have an odor when they perspire, but the ones that do REALLY STINK!!!)
dancin_feet
07-01-2004, 09:41 PM
Oh just remembered another one!
Swing and Triple swing are usually the dances I have no problem following, regardless of the lead. But I danced with a guy one night who was quite good, but so highly stylised I couldn't follow him! As if he was dancing for him, and had no interest in connecting and leading me at all!
That was weird! :shock:
back when i used to contra dance there was a guy who would occasionally wear makeup, a bonnet, & bright red high heels and dance as a follow. it was not pretty.
squirrel
07-02-2004, 06:11 AM
hmmm... I haven't yet had such an experience... and hope never to!
pygmalion
07-02-2004, 06:57 AM
back when i used to contra dance there was a guy who would occasionally wear makeup, a bonnet, & bright red high heels and dance as a follow. it was not pretty.
OMG! What a laugh. I can imagine it wasn't funny to you at the time, though?
Pacion
07-02-2004, 07:14 AM
Can I nominate myself :oops: in a nice way of course :wink: :lol: I will dance around poles or sometimes just be inspired by the guy I am dancing with who then has a heart attack because he was not expecting me to do what ever it is I did - such as remove the hat he is wearing and play with it as if it were a prop especially for me :twisted: :lol:[/i]
cocodrilo
07-02-2004, 08:00 AM
back when i used to contra dance there was a guy who would occasionally wear makeup, a bonnet, & bright red high heels and dance as a follow. it was not pretty.
Yowzuh, was this gay awareness week, or was the guy just a transvestitie? :lol:
back when i used to contra dance there was a guy who would occasionally wear makeup, a bonnet, & bright red high heels and dance as a follow. it was not pretty.
Lol! Sounds familiar:
Back in Seattle, there is a very large transsexual (a friend said that s/he has already had the operation) who asked me to dance.
As one who doesn't care for the snobbishness in the scene, I made it my policy to not turn anyone down who asks me. Regardless of who it is.
So I danced with her. I'm sure it was a hilarious sight - I'm all of 5'4" and she is about 6'2". :shock:
cocodrilo
07-02-2004, 08:08 AM
Please post photos! :D
Ditto for you, tsb, if you have any! :lol:
Lol! No can do... (thankfully!)
TemptressToo
07-02-2004, 09:11 AM
The strangest person I've ever danced with was while helping a friend teach an ECS class at our local university. This little white kid was really skinny, had the mega-afro, and when dancing had no sense of frame whatsoever. It was like dancing with Gumby. His feet were robotically doing the step, step, rock-step portion....but his arms...I can't really describe it. He had me by the hands, but he was flapping his arms like a chicken although there was no tension at all. I could have smacked him in the face with his own hand if I had a mind to (I hate ending sentences with a preposition).
By the end...I was frustrated and swore to never dance with Gumby again.
DWise1
07-02-2004, 09:35 AM
I could have smacked him in the face with his own hand if I had a mind to (I hate ending sentences with a preposition).
You're not ending it with a preposition, so you're cool. The "rule" you're thinking of applies to splitting up prepositional phrases. Here, "to" is part of an infinitive that was dropped, so it's part of a verbal phrase.
TemptressToo
07-02-2004, 09:58 AM
Actually, it isn't completely improper, I just don't like to do it. It is the very nit-picky Business English class (ruled by the all might Gregg Reference Manual) that is coming out in me. I just don't like the looks of it and typically try to re-word my sentences to fix it.
cl5814
07-02-2004, 12:13 PM
But I danced with a guy one night who was quite good, but so highly stylised I couldn't follow him! As if he was dancing for him, and had no interest in connecting and leading me at all!
:shock:
I think this was the experience i had last week while out at a social dance....i have tried 3 dances with him and i am afraid that was the last 3 three dances from me.
Tasek
07-02-2004, 12:18 PM
Just out of curiosity, who or what is (a) gumby?
Vince A
07-02-2004, 12:22 PM
http://www.everwonder.com/david/gumby/
Go down to the history of Gumby . . .
TemptressToo
07-02-2004, 12:27 PM
http://cheneym.home.att.net/Apartmnt/Gumby.jpg
If this link works, it should be Gumby...
pygmalion
07-02-2004, 12:28 PM
I think the gumby used to be an R&B dance, too, right? Sometime in the eighties, if I remember correctly. That was during my non-dancing days, so I can't pinpoint the dates too well. :?
I think it's safe to say that TemptressToo meant Gumby in a derogatory way. (I like Gumby, personally! :wink: :lol: And his pony pal, Pokey, too. LOL!)
JohnK
07-02-2004, 12:56 PM
Kudo's to those of you who still pay attention to grammar and spelling!
Went to a dance two weeks ago, got there early, sitting in my car. Woman pulls in next to me, asks if the hall is open yet, then proceeds to announce she is "nervous being there". Seems she's going through a divorce, and of course I must hear the details. Announces she's been out shopping for shoes, wants to know which pair she should wear, but never shows them to me. All this in the first 5 minutes.
Later on inside, the dance has a lesson, I line up for it, (AWAY from her part of the line), she comes shooting across and claims me as her partner. Then she proceeds to yak constantly during the lesson, and also pronounces herself dizzy after a single underarm turn. I spend the rest of the evening dodging her attempts to snag me for more dances (she says she can dance, but guess what...).
Near the end of the evening, the place thins out and I'm partnerless at the crucial moment. So she snags me for a dance, I look down, and she's barefoot! This on a floor full of high heels and tired dancers! One of the organizers comes over and asks her to put some shoes on. Oh yeah, every 4th or 5th sentence is "I'm not really crazy..." Ohhkayyyy.
Please post photos! :D
Ditto for you, tsb, if you have any! :lol:
sorry to disappoint you. this was weird for dance maybe, but not for southern california. and to respond to the other questions, not sure about his orientation & didn't ask, it's not like he hit on anybody or anything - just wore the bonnet, tammy faye style makeup, the red high heels and usually some sort of blue jumpsuit.
DWise1
07-02-2004, 01:01 PM
Just out of curiosity, who or what is (a) gumby?
On the kid shows when I was a kid (c. mid-late 50's) in the USA, Gumby and Pokey were the main characters of stop-motion-animation films. And I don't know how old they were even then (guess I'd better check out that history link to find out). Gumby was literally an animate slab of modelling clay.
I could have smacked him in the face with his own hand if I had a mind to (I hate ending sentences with a preposition).
You're not ending it with a preposition, so you're cool. The "rule" you're thinking of applies to splitting up prepositional phrases. Here, "to" is part of an infinitive that was dropped, so it's part of a verbal phrase.
the ending of a sentence with a preposition is something up with which we should not put.
But I danced with a guy one night who was quite good, but so highly stylised I couldn't follow him! As if he was dancing for him, and had no interest in connecting and leading me at all!
:shock:
I think this was the experience i had last week while out at a social dance....i have tried 3 dances with him and i am afraid that was the last 3 three dances from me.
his brother dances here in pasadena - leads a lot of intricate moves but doesn't bother to see if the follower completed the last move before starting the next one. i also feel sorry for the women he dances with who invariably avoid dancing with him again.
pygmalion
07-02-2004, 01:10 PM
Just out of curiosity, who or what is (a) gumby?
On the kid shows when I was a kid (c. mid-late 50's) in the USA, Gumby and Pokey were the main characters of stop-motion-animation films. And I don't know how old they were even then (guess I'd better check out that history link to find out). Gumby was literally an animate slab of modelling clay.
I'm shattered! I thought those shows were new when I was little. :( :wink: I watched them in the late sixties to early seventies. (I'm pretty sure there was a lame remake attempt in the early nineties. Grr. One should not mess with classic children's programming. :evil: :lol: )
DWise1
07-02-2004, 01:18 PM
Actually, it isn't completely improper, I just don't like to do it. It is the very nit-picky Business English class (ruled by the all might Gregg Reference Manual) that is coming out in me. I just don't like the looks of it and typically try to re-word my sentences to fix it.
I'm kind of a grammar geek, having started with German in high school and college under a couple old-school teachers (two years of high school German taught me more about English grammar than 12 years of English ever did) and now having moved on to computer languages. So I tend to shy away from arbitrary rules and view grammar more in terms of how the language is structured and just what meaning is being conveyed by a particular construct. I suspect it might be my German training that leads me to trying to pack as much into a single sentence as possible [grin].
Just thought you might enjoy -- or at least find interesting -- a site I found a couple days ago. It's the alt.usage.English FAQ at http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html , from where I had gotten the antonym for "distaff" (whew! I nearly ended that with a preposition!). It also lists several usage disputes, word and phrase origins, etc.
DWise1
07-02-2004, 01:35 PM
Just out of curiosity, who or what is (a) gumby?
On the kid shows when I was a kid (c. mid-late 50's) in the USA, Gumby and Pokey were the main characters of stop-motion-animation films. And I don't know how old they were even then (guess I'd better check out that history link to find out). Gumby was literally an animate slab of modelling clay.
I'm shattered! I thought those shows were new when I was little. :( :wink: I watched them in the late sixties to early seventies. (I'm pretty sure there was a lame remake attempt in the early nineties. Grr. One should not mess with classic children's programming. :evil: :lol: )
Everything seems so new when we were little. That's why watching the old Disney animated features with a little kid is so much fun.
That Gumby history is a worth-while read for us. Seems that they were new when I saw them in 1956-1958. However, there were also some new productions in the late sixties, so you're covered on that one too. I don't remember what show I saw them on, but I do remember watching Howdy-Doody -- as a kid I never understood why they kept calling the snack bar a "canteen"; I knew full well that a canteen was something you carried water in during a hike. And I also remember watching Pinky Lee's kid's show and was surprised seeing him again in a HBO burlesque special in the 80's (he was in the classic skit: "Scotch?" "No, Pekinese.").
Phil Owl
07-02-2004, 04:00 PM
I'll never forget one I will call The Hawk Lady!
The name applies because this woman I danced with at a swing event in Boston last year, I kid you not, had nails that were like the talons of a hawk
http://www.cnr.vt.edu/fisheries/ornithology/Ornithology/raptorialfoot.JPG
Well, dance starts, she was rather, shall we say, energetic but what got me were those "talons" of hers. THAT HURT!!!! I made absolutely certain I NEVER danced with her again!
Not someone I danced with, but I kid you not, I used to see this guy at a lot of Boston swing dances that looked like Kramer on Seinfeld and danced like how I would imagine Kramer doing swing!
cocodrilo
07-02-2004, 05:22 PM
The claws, Kramer, that's hilarious!!! :lol:
pygmalion
07-03-2004, 07:05 AM
Everything seems so new when we were little. That's why watching the old Disney animated features with a little kid is so much fun.
That Gumby history is a worth-while read for us. Seems that they were new when I saw them in 1956-1958. However, there were also some new productions in the late sixties, so you're covered on that one too. I don't remember what show I saw them on, but I do remember watching Howdy-Doody -- as a kid I never understood why they kept calling the snack bar a "canteen"; I knew full well that a canteen was something you carried water in during a hike. And I also remember watching Pinky Lee's kid's show and was surprised seeing him again in a HBO burlesque special in the 80's (he was in the classic skit: "Scotch?" "No, Pekinese.").
I suspect I was seeing reruns, since I was in the preschool set and watching them at ten or eleven in the morning. They probably weren't new shows. They were new to me. That stop action animation seemed like such amazing technology to me at the time. :shock: How DID they get those clay dealies to move? I was fascinated. Very young and easily impressed, too.
pygmalion
07-03-2004, 07:12 AM
I'm kind of a grammar geek, having started with German in high school and college under a couple old-school teachers (two years of high school German taught me more about English grammar than 12 years of English ever did) and now having moved on to computer languages. So I tend to shy away from arbitrary rules and view grammar more in terms of how the language is structured and just what meaning is being conveyed by a particular construct. I suspect it might be my German training that leads me to trying to pack as much into a single sentence as possible [grin].
Just thought you might enjoy -- or at least find interesting -- a site I found a couple days ago. It's the alt.usage.English FAQ at http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html , from where I had gotten the antonym for "distaff" (whew! I nearly ended that with a preposition!). It also lists several usage disputes, word and phrase origins, etc.
Thanks for the site. Will check it out.
I used to absolutely HATE grammar until I had Mrs. Klock, the world's best ninth grade English teacher. She taught grammar in an interesting way. She said it was more a series of observations about what works in a language tha a set of dusty old rules. That approach reached me. Mrs. Klock was great! And she introduced me to lots of great literature, as an added bonus. :D
I find, lately, that I have developed two sets of grammar rules that I use. First, there are the formal, Strunk and White rules, that I use when I'm writing for adult, formal consumption. And there is the totally informal, somewhat ungramatical writing style that resembles a conversation with a friend. The second version is full of sentence fragments and all sorts of other errors, LOL. But at least it doesn't "sound" stuffy. :wink:
cocodrilo
07-03-2004, 05:21 PM
Totally off the dance subject, but one of my college kids had a POKEY KEY CHAIN! When I asked him if he knew what character it was, he said he had no idea... :cry:
pygmalion
07-03-2004, 05:24 PM
Pokey was actually cooler than Gumby. Gumby had a power/control complex, IMHO. Pokey knew how to go with the flow. :lol:
cocodrilo
07-03-2004, 05:37 PM
He was much cuter, too! :wink:
DWise1
07-03-2004, 06:51 PM
I'm kind of a grammar geek, having started with German in high school and college under a couple old-school teachers (two years of high school German taught me more about English grammar than 12 years of English ever did) and now having moved on to computer languages. So I tend to shy away from arbitrary rules and view grammar more in terms of how the language is structured and just what meaning is being conveyed by a particular construct. I suspect it might be my German training that leads me to trying to pack as much into a single sentence as possible [grin].
Just thought you might enjoy -- or at least find interesting -- a site I found a couple days ago. It's the alt.usage.English FAQ at http://www.english-usage.com/faq.html , from where I had gotten the antonym for "distaff" (whew! I nearly ended that with a preposition!). It also lists several usage disputes, word and phrase origins, etc.
Thanks for the site. Will check it out.
I used to absolutely HATE grammar until I had Mrs. Klock, the world's best ninth grade English teacher. She taught grammar in an interesting way. She said it was more a series of observations about what works in a language tha a set of dusty old rules. That approach reached me. Mrs. Klock was great! And she introduced me to lots of great literature, as an added bonus. :D
I find, lately, that I have developed two sets of grammar rules that I use. First, there are the formal, Strunk and White rules, that I use when I'm writing for adult, formal consumption. And there is the totally informal, somewhat ungramatical writing style that resembles a conversation with a friend. The second version is full of sentence fragments and all sorts of other errors, LOL. But at least it doesn't "sound" stuffy. :wink:
Guess I just naturally sound stuffy, then. [grin]
I'm a strong advocate of teaching foreign languages in school. For me, a grammar is the structure of a language and the way that the language works and the key to using that language. But since we learn our first language before its grammar, we don't normally recognize what a grammar is for until we learn our first foreign language. Before then, unless we have had an exceptional teacher, grammar is just a bunch of meaningless rules that you either already know or that you don't use but remember only long enough to pass the test.
Personally, I cannot imagine what life would be like restricted to just one language. Kind of like life without dancing?
salsachinita
07-03-2004, 08:32 PM
Hey, guys! What are wierd characters....? Every time I visited this thread I was kinda excited at the thought that there would be funny stories to read :P .........
Sarah
07-04-2004, 03:23 AM
Hey, guys! What are wierd characters....? Every time I visited this thread I was kinda excited at the thought that there would be funny stories to read :P .........
Wierd characters are people who would rather discuss grammar than dancing. ;) :lol: HTH.
Cheers
Sarah
pygmalion
07-04-2004, 07:21 AM
Fine. I confess. I, too, am a weird character. :oops: :lol:
vBulletin® v3.8.1, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.