cocodrilo said:
I've had the poor misfortune, many a time, of going to a club with a person who simply refuses to dance.
Cocodrilo, does that person know how to dance? Is it a matter of refusing to do something that he/she knows how to do, or of not knowing the first thing about what to do out on that floor?
For the first 48 years of my life I was pegged as having absolutely no sense of rhythm and being totally incapable of ever learning to dance. And that was repeatedly pounded into me by all my failed attempts to learn (as I related some time back, all those well-intentioned attempts to teach me took the wrong approach of assuming that we naturally "hear" what the music tells us to do, that we are born with musicality instead of the reality that we must develop it). It wasn't until this event that I became determined to turn that around, after which I did finally start to learn.
Our friend invited us and a few other couples we were friends with to her company's Christmas party, a formal affair that included dancing. I spent most of that evening in misery sitting all alone at our table watching everybody else dance. I simply could not go out there and try, because I had absolutely no clue whatsoever. Absolutely no idea about steps. Absolutely no idea about what the music was doing and how I was supposed to respond to it. Absolutely nothing. But I came out of that miserable evening knowing that I had to do something about it and so when I saw that salsa classes were going to offered after work here and my wife mentioned to somebody that she wanted to learn salsa, I jumped on that opportunity (which turned out to be intermediate salsa, which I survived somehow) and so it all began.
So can't it be that those who just sit and watch are people who enjoy the music and the dancing, but are convinced that they themselves cannot possibly learn to dance?
Or perhaps they are becoming interested in possibly trying? One Lindy Wednesday at Tia Juana's I went over to the bar to get a drink and found myself next to this guy who'd been sitting there watching all this time. It turns out that he was on a business trip from Boston and was staying in the motel next door, so he came over for a beer and suddenly (as he described it) all these people came in and started dancing. He found it fascinating; this was his first live exposure to swing dancing. I answered his questions and, when he expressed doubt about being able to find anything like it back home, I knew better (having found sites about the swing scene in and around Boston) and suggested ways of Google'ing for swing classes when he got home.
And besides, whether those observers are budding future dancers or are novices lacking the confidence or are fated to remain JAFOs ("just another observer") forever, they all have their dreams that are being kept alive by being there observing the dancers on the floor -- they are not necessarily watching just for entertainment. Speaking as one how has had his dreams ripped away and shreded (divorce at separation plus 10 weeks and counting), keeping one's dreams alive can be important.
That produced a number of evenings where I spent a couple of hours without dancing at all.
