B36 - Dancing (Part 3 of 5)

Hi again,

For those that are interested in the next part of my ongoing journey, I’m basically copying this from my journal entry that I did at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning.


Well I went to the dance on Saturday night and it was a different experience again. The woman that I had mentioned in the previous posts was there but I only danced with here three or four times. It was a strange feeling as I had the awareness that I wasn’t attracted to her like I was the last time I saw her or when I talked to her on the phone. I couldn’t figure it out then and still don’t know why. There were half a dozen other single women there that I danced with most of the evening, three that I never met before.

I also found myself letting go of some of my inhibitions in that I got up and tried the meringue, a dance that I did in a workshop a couple of months back but had almost all but forgotten as I never practiced it. She had different moves than what I had learned so I was following her and learning as I went. I also learned a couple of new steps in the cha-cha, rumba and foxtrot during the dances, with awareness that eyes were watching us.

An interesting thing in this moment is that I can clearly see the faces of the people that I was associating with last night. I can also see what they were wearing if I had focused on it at the time. This is a new experience for me as I normally can’t visualize faces or objects. I could be looking at something and close my eyes and it’s gone, there’s a blank slate before my eyes. I have a general memory of it but no visuals.

Another interesting thing I was aware of was that every woman I danced with was different, not only did they dance differently but they felt different. One was light as a feather for 60% of the step, or movement and then I could feel her compress or hold back in the remaining 40% of the step. It was like sliding on ice and then hitting a sandy patch. Another felt dense and heavy and still another felt stick-like, and jerky and then there were others that you could feel life and passion in their steps and movements, but also something else that I can’t quite put my finger on in this moment.

One thing that’s coming out of all this is that I’m beginning to see that dancing is another way of being able to know people on different levels that they don’t present during a conversation or other activity. It’s like dancing is an expression of their soul including their emotions and issues. I just had this visualization that dancing is very much like getting undressed in front of strangers, and being exposed for them to see the real you and not the one that hides behind their clothes. Another thing was when I was sitting out a dance I would watch others and I could also feel them covering up and putting on a façade.

End of part 3 of 5)
John