> I’ve never heard of a family being divided because its members dance different styles, but I am in one divided by political and religious opinions.
Being a dancer (lindy hop) with a large number of dancers in my social circle, dancing is actually a frequent source of tension among many couples around me.
Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
And don’t get me started on lindy hop vs west coast swing.
> And don’t get me started on lindy hop vs west coast swing.
The sad thing is that (for the most part) I don't think the westies really hate on the lindy hoppers much. You can see, admittedly older, clips[1] of dancers throwing in a bit of lindy, balboa, and shag in top level comps. Of course, this is Sylvia Sykes, so maybe that's an exception.
> Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
This unnerves me. My partner could and would dance all day, anywhere, any scenario. I have to be unbelievably drunk to come close to anything resembling dancing. Any event we go to together that involves dancing is intensely emotionally debilitating to me for that reason, and sometimes I worry that it's a basal insurmountable incompatibility between us.
> And don’t get me started on lindy hop vs west coast swing.
I'm puzzled where this comes from, since they're entirely different scenes. On a social dance night, or say, a festival, one may find Blue/Balboa/Lindy Hop (and possibly Shag), but hardly Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing, since the music is different.
Edit: Actually, the message that the article sends is exactly what happens - dancers try other dances, then they share how they've integrated them into their dance, or how interesting is anyway to try something different - as opposed to intellectual condescension.
> Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
There surely are occurrences of this, but I wouldn't describe the phenomenon as common. It implies that a romantic relationship is based entirely on dancing, which I don't think is frequent; also, the vast majority of the dancers leave the scene within 3/4 years.
I've personally lived the "mismatch of interest", but it ended up like any other separate hobby in the context of a couple.
I’d add also that this is really only an issue for some women. Most men I’ve met end up leaving the dance scene once they have a partner - if said partner doesn’t dance.
It’s reflected by polling the crowd. There are way more women in relationships out dancing than there are men out dancing in relationships. Single men dominate the numbers when it comes to dancing.
This is why I don’t really recommend it to most men as a way to meet women. It’s lopsided numbers and it’s hard to stand out in a good way as a beginner - in most dance scenes anyway. That said, if you have a lot of time to kill and are big on learning new skills… it can pan out but it’s a multi-year endeavor that often doesn’t go anywhere.
> There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. (Michel de Montaigne, Essais)
As a cave/tech diver I've noticed that intellectuals are often have some of the hardest times in training due to overthinking.
They'll tend to focus on trying to perfect the little details in training and miss the big picture and failed to K.I.S.S. and argue about theory and resist accepting simple rules.
I used to really like watching Deadliest Catch because I grew up in Kodiak and that's a good example of an environment where an intellectual would generally fail pretty badly. You don't need to be particularly clever, you need to understand what is going to kill you (ropes in particular) and to never pick up your feet. It is an environment where you need to be smart enough to follow the rules, and just "dumb" enough not to argue and question them. Embracing shutting up and being dumb is something that intellectuals generally resist identifying as a virtue.
[ And I'd argue that the infestation of contrarianism-for-contrarianisms-sake that infects HN is a larger symptom of that psychological bias -- so many people doing so much work convincing themselves that they're very clever by rejecting all conventional wisdom ]
I definitely resonate with this description. I need a strong foundation of information and intuition to learn and do things. So, I need to dive into the frequently glossed over mechanics of everything I learn.
It's part of why I tend to prefer learning new things alone. I know I'm going to take a long time, and I know I'm going to do a ton of dumb, small, incremental testing to build my foundation.
But I don't think it's necessarily overthinking. Maybe for the immediate context, but not for any context. I know just "doing what I'm told" will likely work 99% of the time. What I'm interested in is why does it work, how do I raise my confidence for the remaining 1%, and making sure I understand the underlying mechanics of things so I can make good judgement calls when situations arise.
Less commonly but more dangerously, an excess of overconfidence also makes poor learners—they take action faster than most, but get into trouble due to failure to realize all they have to learn.
That might actually be more common? That's definitely the one that I everyone needs to guard against, since it also strikes as complacency for the intermediate person.
I've been surprised to find myself making multiple similar pivots over the years. A lot of what I dismissed in my younger years as lacking of intellectual merit, I have come around to value much more highly than I ever would have guessed.
It's funny, but dancing in particular has been my greatest fear for as long as I can remember, so I've always done my best to avoid situations where I'd be forced to do it. Not only did I not see the point or appeal, but I deeply dreaded the prospect of going on the dance floor.
As fears go, however, this one is quite innocent, and also fairly simple to face. And how empowering wouldn't it be, to overcome ones biggest obstacle? So not too long ago, when I was invited to a dance class by a group of friends, I decided I'd go, just the one time, as some sort of exposure therapy.
The dance was tango. As I had expected, I was anxious, stressed, and scared through the entire class (although it was very helpful having the excuse that it was my first day). What I did not expect was how fascinating the dance would turn out to be. How beautiful and elegant, yet also technical and structured. I saw our instructors dancing some dead simple improvised steps, and somehow, despite not being planned out at all, they were totally synchronized. There had to be some brain-to-brain communication going on, a sort of body language that I could not yet perceive or understand, but that I knew I wanted to learn.
That was six months ago, and since then I've gone to some sort of tango thing multiple times a week, every week I've been able to. I'm still nervous on my way to a class, and it takes a few dances to warm up and get loose each session, but I'm starting to enjoy it and feel like I'm actually dancing. In the process, I've come to understand more deeply what people mean when they say "there's more to life than X".
Incidentally a helpful dichotomy in this regard is laid out in Nietzsche's first major work: The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (he was a superb classical philologist by trade and one of the youngest tenured "Classics" professors at the age of 24):
Apollonian/Dionysian [0]
>Dancing forces you to be here and now—connecting you with your and your partner’s body. Dancing is a means of irrational communication. Dancing is a conversation between two people where the means of communication are your bodies.
Personally, I wouldn't focus on partner dance. In my experience those tend to be over-analytical and strict.
It is more approachable to immerse yourself in dancing all by yourself and/or in group dance (more akin to ritualistic dances inducing trance-like states).
Over the past two years I have become quite a competent swing dancer. In order to do this, I've had to practice (of course), but also make friends and build community with people from all different walks of life and professions.
We got to know each other a lot more slowly, some might even say superficially, but these slow burn relationships with more conversation in dance than in words have become some of the deepest and most meaningful friendships in my adult life.
If I could have my time all over again, I would start dancing as early as possible in life.
Yes, and it is sad to see people thinking that something as universal as dancing (that literally exist in every culture in some form) is "not for them".
It sadly implies that this person went through bullying and rejection.
Why is it so difficult for you to accept that others don't share your taste? I've never been into dancing but decided to take some classes with friends because that sounded fun, and realised that I truly don't like dancing.
It has nothing to do with rejection. This claim that "you poor thing, if you hadn't been rejected you'd see how good this is" sounds really condescending.
Readit News
Being a dancer (lindy hop) with a large number of dancers in my social circle, dancing is actually a frequent source of tension among many couples around me.
Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
And don’t get me started on lindy hop vs west coast swing.
The sad thing is that (for the most part) I don't think the westies really hate on the lindy hoppers much. You can see, admittedly older, clips[1] of dancers throwing in a bit of lindy, balboa, and shag in top level comps. Of course, this is Sylvia Sykes, so maybe that's an exception.
---
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psOWt0oyx9k
This unnerves me. My partner could and would dance all day, anywhere, any scenario. I have to be unbelievably drunk to come close to anything resembling dancing. Any event we go to together that involves dancing is intensely emotionally debilitating to me for that reason, and sometimes I worry that it's a basal insurmountable incompatibility between us.
I'm puzzled where this comes from, since they're entirely different scenes. On a social dance night, or say, a festival, one may find Blue/Balboa/Lindy Hop (and possibly Shag), but hardly Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing, since the music is different.
Edit: Actually, the message that the article sends is exactly what happens - dancers try other dances, then they share how they've integrated them into their dance, or how interesting is anyway to try something different - as opposed to intellectual condescension.
> Couples splitting up because one is heavily more invested in dancing than the other is a common occurence.
There surely are occurrences of this, but I wouldn't describe the phenomenon as common. It implies that a romantic relationship is based entirely on dancing, which I don't think is frequent; also, the vast majority of the dancers leave the scene within 3/4 years.
I've personally lived the "mismatch of interest", but it ended up like any other separate hobby in the context of a couple.
It’s reflected by polling the crowd. There are way more women in relationships out dancing than there are men out dancing in relationships. Single men dominate the numbers when it comes to dancing.
This is why I don’t really recommend it to most men as a way to meet women. It’s lopsided numbers and it’s hard to stand out in a good way as a beginner - in most dance scenes anyway. That said, if you have a lot of time to kill and are big on learning new skills… it can pan out but it’s a multi-year endeavor that often doesn’t go anywhere.
I wish writing was the author's "dance". Dancing tends to not be the best metaphor for anything in particular. Dancing is just dancing.
Albert Camus dancing (Life Magazine): https://coreyrobin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/albert-cam...
They'll tend to focus on trying to perfect the little details in training and miss the big picture and failed to K.I.S.S. and argue about theory and resist accepting simple rules.
I used to really like watching Deadliest Catch because I grew up in Kodiak and that's a good example of an environment where an intellectual would generally fail pretty badly. You don't need to be particularly clever, you need to understand what is going to kill you (ropes in particular) and to never pick up your feet. It is an environment where you need to be smart enough to follow the rules, and just "dumb" enough not to argue and question them. Embracing shutting up and being dumb is something that intellectuals generally resist identifying as a virtue.
[ And I'd argue that the infestation of contrarianism-for-contrarianisms-sake that infects HN is a larger symptom of that psychological bias -- so many people doing so much work convincing themselves that they're very clever by rejecting all conventional wisdom ]
It's part of why I tend to prefer learning new things alone. I know I'm going to take a long time, and I know I'm going to do a ton of dumb, small, incremental testing to build my foundation.
But I don't think it's necessarily overthinking. Maybe for the immediate context, but not for any context. I know just "doing what I'm told" will likely work 99% of the time. What I'm interested in is why does it work, how do I raise my confidence for the remaining 1%, and making sure I understand the underlying mechanics of things so I can make good judgement calls when situations arise.
It's funny, but dancing in particular has been my greatest fear for as long as I can remember, so I've always done my best to avoid situations where I'd be forced to do it. Not only did I not see the point or appeal, but I deeply dreaded the prospect of going on the dance floor.
As fears go, however, this one is quite innocent, and also fairly simple to face. And how empowering wouldn't it be, to overcome ones biggest obstacle? So not too long ago, when I was invited to a dance class by a group of friends, I decided I'd go, just the one time, as some sort of exposure therapy.
The dance was tango. As I had expected, I was anxious, stressed, and scared through the entire class (although it was very helpful having the excuse that it was my first day). What I did not expect was how fascinating the dance would turn out to be. How beautiful and elegant, yet also technical and structured. I saw our instructors dancing some dead simple improvised steps, and somehow, despite not being planned out at all, they were totally synchronized. There had to be some brain-to-brain communication going on, a sort of body language that I could not yet perceive or understand, but that I knew I wanted to learn.
That was six months ago, and since then I've gone to some sort of tango thing multiple times a week, every week I've been able to. I'm still nervous on my way to a class, and it takes a few dances to warm up and get loose each session, but I'm starting to enjoy it and feel like I'm actually dancing. In the process, I've come to understand more deeply what people mean when they say "there's more to life than X".
Deleted Comment
Apollonian/Dionysian [0]
>Dancing forces you to be here and now—connecting you with your and your partner’s body. Dancing is a means of irrational communication. Dancing is a conversation between two people where the means of communication are your bodies.
Personally, I wouldn't focus on partner dance. In my experience those tend to be over-analytical and strict.
It is more approachable to immerse yourself in dancing all by yourself and/or in group dance (more akin to ritualistic dances inducing trance-like states).
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian
Now that you bring it up, does it help? That is, does dancing help you get laid?
We got to know each other a lot more slowly, some might even say superficially, but these slow burn relationships with more conversation in dance than in words have become some of the deepest and most meaningful friendships in my adult life.
If I could have my time all over again, I would start dancing as early as possible in life.
Like how EU4 players feel toward Civ players
Building a system in which you have value and others are stupid can help you cope.
Damn
https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=14
It sadly implies that this person went through bullying and rejection.
It has nothing to do with rejection. This claim that "you poor thing, if you hadn't been rejected you'd see how good this is" sounds really condescending.