A Backwards Shag is a Just a Hop

I was dining with my older-but-wiser Southern Belle friend. She's not only smart, and tough, and funny, but she's a psychologist too (which can be a pain in the ass sometimes if you're being highly passive aggressive, but think about it--nice to have a good knock to the head when you need it, eh?) Knowing her is like having Her Royal Highness Jill Conner Browne the Boss Sweet Potato Queenin your pocket. For the record, I am a Queen myself but my chapter membership has dwindled down to one, as everyone moved away or got too busy at work to have fun, but I will survive.

Anyhoo, two things came up during our lunch: First, I have never slow-danced. Never. Not even though Chuck Mangione's "Last Dance" put me into a depressive funk when I was 14 from which I have never quite emerged, and not even when I actually had a boyfriend. Come to think of it, only gay boys dance with me --even my husband wouldn't dance with me at our wedding but hie'd himself off to some Titty Pit, still clad in his wedding bib and tucker---and gay boys seldom slow dance with the ladies. I didn't go to any high school dances and I certainly was not invited to the Prom (and yet, I was cute, go figure.) I worked my way through college, so there were no dances there, and none of my friends had dancing at their weddings. Or if they did, they were not the slow-dance numbers. So there--I have never had the experience of slow dancing, with or without a stiffy pressed into my thighs. It was suggested at lunch that while I do indeed have some of what the Sweet Potato Queens label as The Five Men You Must Have In Your Life At All Times, I do not have Someone to Dance With. Even the Someone To Have Great Sex With--who doubles as The Man I Can Talk to--does not dance with me, and I am sure if I asked him to slow dance with me to get me over some developmental hurdle I should have passed at sixteen (but didn't) he'd probably give me the same shocked look he gave me once when I said rather drunkenly I had cramps and could we please cuddle.

Second: I love dancing, and I'm ticked off I don't dance anymore. I've substituted snide comments and lonely posts for joyous movement, and I will start going to Swing Club this month, no matter the potential humiliation (I don't know any steps) or potential damage to my fragile knees. Southern Belle Friend (let's call her SBF) was big into dancing in her hey day--which was the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's, but she's not dancing much these days. While I encouraged her to join one of the Swing Dance Clubs here, she waved her hand in dismissal, then started on a discussion of the regional dances of the American South.

For one thing, she's a Shagger. The Shag is fairly localized to South and North Carolina (according to SBF.) It's not too fast, not too slow. However, SBF related one story about the Shag which I found really interesting. Apparently when she moved to Birmingham, she tried to dance at some of the local clubs. Somehow her steps just didn't mesh: her male partner would be ready to twirl her and she'd be in the middle of some complicated step. She'd be ready to twirl and her partner would be swinging in the opposite direction. Finally someone told her that back in the 50's, some man from Birmingham went to North Carolina, learned to dance The Shag, and brought it back to Birmingham where he taught it widely. However, he got the steps backwards, and taught it in reverse--and the shag, backwards, is really just a Hop.

I sat open mouthed during this recitation--oh, linguistic minefield! The two Brits at the next table glared at me as I chortled, "You mean a backwards Shag is just a Hop?" Of course you can read more into this--how Western courtship rituals don't mesh with Beijing ones, how out of step we are, etc, but what I took away more than anything from this conversation, as well as my disastrous Karaoke Date Night (where friends rescued me, thank GOD) is that you have to dance with a crowd whose steps fit your own, if you really want to swing.