I went to Dance Club and all I shot were hands and feet

Dance club is a clandestine ritual that parents can only attend by invitation, when you are lucky enough to be asked to serve as a chaperon. I was invited.

First,  Dad was out of town, so the boys and I huddled around the computer together as we watched You Tube videos that explained how to tie a tie.  After several failed attempts, with the clock ticking, we bailed on the Windsor, and just went for a basic knot.

My son and I left, already sweaty from the stress of our preview, the tie dance. Here’s what I observed about dance club.

• The girls stand in a line; the boys line up directly across from from the girls to form parallel lines.

• The instructor serves as DJ, and coach, calling out the dance steps they’ve learned so far with his very Madonna-like microphone. He changes the music seamlessly (covering several eras of music).

• On cue, the instructor tells the boys to move down the line every 5-7 minutes. The girls stay put, as a different boy moves down the line to dance with a new partner every few minutes.
• The instructor has been teaching dance club at this school for 35 years. He’s elderly, and he’s hip.
• The kids have learned a lot… the mashed potato, the cell phone, the electric slide, and the box step.
• Also, the dip.
• I felt a bit cheated when the instructor said, “How many of you gentlemen dipped your Mom’s last week?”  I did not get dipped.  I’ll be looking into that.
• During the box step, the participants are asked to discover three new facts about their partner.
• It was the boys, some of them, that found their groove, and had arms flying and heels kicking in a flurry of excitement. They were truly enjoying themselves, and were sad to see the time ending. This surprised me. Some boys didn’t want to move, at all.

• Girls enjoyed dancing with other girls, and often paid more attention to the girls beside them, rather than the boy across from them.
• The energy radiated off the four lines of kids dancing in unison was intoxicating.
• During the Box step, the music was The Bee Gees, How Deep is Your Love. Tears filled my eyes at the prospect of realizing many of us will all be together again, in some shape or form, as parents at our children’s weddings. I looked around, and many other Moms were wiping tears away as well. I hope I am standing with every one of them at some wedding in the future.  Just so we can say, “Remember when…?”
• If none of those Moms are there at the weddings, I will trust that the Moms I am with experienced something similar, somewhere else, and I’ll try to form that bond with them, and share a tear.

I waited for at least 35 minutes for my son to finally make it down the line to where I was standing… close to my Nikon D80 camera. I lifted the camera to shoot, and my son’s face, in a panic, mouthed the word “No!” to me.

I chose to go with the “building trust” route, and gently put my camera down. I shot only hands and feet.

Next year will be even better, and I can’t wait to be invited again.