Oh boy! I think I kind of overdid it last evening.

Earlier, my long-time partner Mary’s daughter-in-law, Dora, called and invited me to go to a swing dance with her and several mutual friends. The Hot Club of Spokane, a combo that plays 1930s-50s big band music, played after a one-hour East Coast Swing dance lesson.

The lesson was well-attended. And although the instructors were not the greatest, they did get most attendees doing 3 or 4 reasonable moves, and once the music started they had fun.

After the band began to play the place filled up with members of the Spokane Swing Dance Club. Interestingly, most of the members are quite young. Many are college students and most of the others looked to be under 40. Also there were more young women there than men so it looked like a great place for young men to meet fun young ladies.

Anyway, it has been a year since I have been to a dance and probably 2-3 years since I have danced East Coast Swing so I only remembered 5 or 6 steps. But I think I did an OK job with those. But boy, those young ladies sure have a lot of energy.

We did stay until the dance ended at 10:00 PM, so I attended a one-hour lesson and two hours of dancing with not too many breaks. I was even asked to dance by 3 or 4 young ladies as well as dancing with Dora and friends. By the time I sat down I realized I may have overestimated my conditioning and stamina for this kind of movement. It made me realize just how many years of fun I have missed in my younger years by being afraid of looking silly.

Ken Kaiyala
8-24-18