My Momentary Lapse Of Reason

What was I thinking? Somebody cuff me over the head with a heavy object.

After returning from San Diego, I realised that I'd been eating that little too well during my travels - business entertaining and all that. Coupled with the remarkably sedentary life of a musician, the pounds seem to have found a swarming point on my frame.

"Okay", I said to myself, "exercise is the key". So I cast about thinking about the best avenue to explore. Running again was too boring a prospect, with the included hazard of dodging student-hurled chow on the pavements; and I haven't returned to swimming since being a substrate to an overly-friendly Trichoderma. So the obvious thing was to go out dancing more.

"Winner", I thought. Burn off some of those dastardly calories and inflict myself on more people at the same time. The only proviso being that it can't be on a band practice night...

Only then did I realise how limited my options were: most salsa spots are during the weekday, as the bars make more money with mainstream nights over the weekend. Jive was the same. The prospect of a return to ballroom dancing was starting to loom large. Also, there is the increased prospect of business dinner-dances, so it's clearly in my best interests to knock a few rust-spots off.

So I gritted my teeth and returned to the club I'd left as a student more than a decade ago, knowing that I'd be incognito, and hoping that the things that I'd despised about it (I don't use strong emotional words like those very often, so please bear with me) had changed for the better. My timing was perfect as it coincided with the beginning of the new academic year, and the "Give-it-a-go" introductory lessons were on. I turned up on the Friday evening without a change of dance shoes...

There was the usual gender imbalance that most dancing clubs in the UK have to negotiate. But at least the competitive team members were there to act as demonstrators, and the instructor tried to deliver an airy and light atmosphere.

I'm really sorry to say that those are the only positive points I could find. (My thoughts on the level of physical education skills in that arena are well documented, so I shan't retread old ground.)

The same reasons why I'd left and started up the Salsa & Merengue Society - those same issues, which when addressed properly made S&Msoc the most successful of its kind, were still there in the now-rebranded Dancesport club more than 10 years on. Even as a then member of the Dancesport competitive team, I felt strongly about the oligarchic nature of the club, that team members failed to engage more extensively with the standard 'pundits' if you like, in order to foster a higher quality of dance.

Societies are funded in great part, in proportion to their membership numbers - Dancesport can recruit more than 250 members annually, of which at most 24 will compete in the A,B and C teams. In my time, a disproportionate level of resource I felt was being devoted to subsidising the team and not enough on developmental opportunities for the non-team students. This perception was made more vulnerable to conflict of interest as the governing committee comprised team members or their friends.

That night, team members spent most of their time exhibiting themselves, and talking to each other and to their Latin instructors - who arrived late. To be fair, apparently there had been a mechanical failure with the bus that the latter had been on; they had been taking lessons in London - but it begs the question, "Why didn't they allow for that?" They would have, if it was a competition they were going to - you can bet your bottom dollar.

Maybe the occassion of introducing a group of interested people to your supposed passion and livelihood wasn't considered important enough. And not a single team member was actually in the learning body to offer any remedial advice. Not one. I (surreptitiously) helped more than all of them put together.

This club laments the dearth of male dancers, and their ability to hold onto them. Very clearly, the instructor was more conversant with teaching females than males (consistently giving erroneous direction changes to the leads is unforgiveable), and the latter were sorely neglected from an organisational perspective. Apart from the oligarchy, the lack of reason linking cause to effect is, as I said before, despicable.

All those involved purpot to love dance. But there is an obvious disparity between word and deed. What I saw was a love of individual self, not a commitment to helping another person experience one's passion.

And to score one more point:
At its height, the Salsa & Merengue Society recruited more than 800 members in a year, of which 120 were active every week (that's half the Dancesport's total membership); AND the S&Msoc waived its right to membership subsidy while still running a calendarful of well attended events.

I will go back once more, to see if the Latin teachers are any better. I hope for the sake of the run-of-the-mill members that they are.

Loo Yeo