like the violin

I'm thinking about ending my summer holidays and getting back to school tomorrow. School doesn't officially start until September 3rd, but it doesn't do to come back to school and not have practised for weeks. Actually I haven't practised at all during the whole of July. Oh, dear, I'll have some work to do with my voice! But I know better than to try to do serious singing practise when I'm still not fully recovered from the Herräng flu. It would do more harm than good to my voice. I'll have to wait ... But I long to sing. And I miss my school. The grand pianos on the 6th floor, the light that floods into the corridors, the music swimming through the windows when I walk up from the tram stop.



As if yesterday's (or actually "this morning's" would be a more accurate way of putting it) post didn't make that clear, I might be more into dancing now than I've ever been.

I met this guy in Herräng who explained that dancing to him was all about trying to get better and better. I was like, "wait a minute, where's the fun?". Of course, he enjoys it as well, but there's still that lingering thought of always improving, dancing with better dancers, dancing more, more often, practising ... And as I listened, I knew that that's how I was, before, when I was a contemporary dancer. I pushed myself all the time, I was so competitive, I had to have others confirming me all the time. In the end it was no fun at all.

So I've done that for TOO LONG, doing stuff only to try to be the best. Nowadays, I try not to do things to get better at doing them, ever. I do them because I love them and because I feel like doing them. My opinion is that everything that I really love doing, I will get better at, sooner or later. Because the only way to really get better at something is to enjoy it, profoundly. I want to be a good dancer and I want to learn more, but it is not my goal; my goal is to live the music (as is with everything I do in my life). The rest will all come, as long as I'm having fun.

I've been having fun dancing for more than a year now. I feel like a want to dance forever.

He also said another thing: The day that you start thinking about what other people think of your dancing, you're done. That's it. From that day on you will never enjoy it as much, unless you can stop it in time. If you think about what others think about your dancing, it will become less and less fun, and you'll worry more and more, and you will stop dancing.

He is so right. Lindy hop for me has always been because I love it, not because I have to force myself to get better. And I will do everything I can to keep it that way. I hope, I hope, that I learned that lesson when I was a contemporary dancer, but maybe I have to be careful. I cannot, I will not, fall into that gap again! I will dance for myself and myself only. And if others enjoy dancing with me, I'll love it. But I won't dance for them, nor for them to confirm or compliment me.

When I danced with a guy yesterday, I had to ask him why he looked so bored. Unfortunately someone had told him that I'm some sort of wonderful dancer. And I hate to disappoint people. And he looked bored. And I thought that I was boring. And I hate to be boring.

And he just smiled at me and said I would not have danced with you for that long if I had been bored with you. And I trusted him, instantly. And that's that.

Photo taken during a Lindy in the Park in July this year.