Shall We Dance?

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I went tonight to my shul to take the first class in a four-week course in simcha dancing--these are the lovely circle and group line dances a la The Hustle that women and young girls do at Orthodox weddings while on their side of the mechitzah/divider. I've always watched them have fun on the dance floor, graceful, laughing and looking coordinated at the same time. In fact they make these organized dances look so easy and fun.

Even the men and the boys at some simchas, perhaps normally clumsy-footed, are so graceful in their own circle dances on the other side of the mechitza. They stay in step with one another, stomp with fervor and make their way around in merriment. Is simcha dancing a yeshiva high school credit, I wonder? Or is there a private dance teacher waiting in a Kollel hallway, eager to teach the latest dance moves to those willing to learn? While the wives are at home with the children, assuming their husbands are poring over a page in Gemara with a chevrusa, their men are doing the box step and a grapevine.

Not that I have any simchas that I know of coming up, but it's time to learn some of these great dance moves, so I don't have to stand behind the women at a simcha and try to copy their moves. It's time to learn to jump right into those circles or line dances and shake my groove thing.

I took my 8-year-old daughter with me, as the men of the household were at the latest Harry Potter movie, and it wasn't worth my hiring a babysitter for an hour.

Now, one thing I have, thank G-d, is coordination on a dance floor -- on any dance floor and with any kind of dance! So it was wonderful to catch on quickly and surely to the choreography that the five dances we learned in an hour entailed. It was a small group of women, which made it rather cozy, and my daughter, who surprisingly was shy, but participated nonetheless.

I had a great workout, I had fun, I knew exactly why I was tired after that hour of moving around. Now I just need to be invited to a Orthodox simcha or two where I can put these dances in action.

So...do you have my home address information for your invitation guest list? Just checking...