2 of 25: Scottish Country Dancing with Luz

The second adventure in my new years resolution –  25 in ’13  had me teaming up with a dear friend to try something that would never have been on my radar, had I not had her in my life. Luz (pronounced Looth) is an avid Scottish Country Dancer. She loves to go to her dancing class every week and really enjoys the wonderful people she dances with. I have heard great stories about parties and Dancing Balls with her SCD people. So naturally, when I was trying to come up with 25 new things to learn, it popped in my head right away! Also – fun fact – I’m part Scottish. (don’t worry, I managed to resist breaking out my well practiced accent)

I was going into the experience picturing some Highland Dancing type moves in a big group. I remember as a child there were a group of “Highland Dancers” in school who I always thought were amazing. They’d do a dance for every talent show or Christmas assembly and were mesmerizing. I thought they were so cool in fact I remember ‘faking it’ and trying it out at home in my bedroom just doing the moves that I had sort of remembered from their dances, thinking I had totally pulled it off…ahaha, I’m sure I looked ridiculous  awesome.

Anyway – what I learned was that it was not much like the individual Highland Dancing I had seen, it was more of a very complicated partner-based group dance. I couldn’t believe how much you had to THINK to make it through the dance properly. Luz took me to the more basic of the two classes that happen every Tuesday night in Oakville. Despite being in the basic class I still had to really focus and stretch the endurance of my memory to recall the different ways to do the steps and then the sequence those steps were in the dance. Also there were different roles for the different pairs depending on what position they were in the chain of dancers. I really had to bring my A game to keep up! Just kidding, I don’t have a dancing A game. And let’s just say ‘keeping up’ might be on the flattering end of describing my level of success…

Practicing the moves with my new friend Peter. Now was that a slip step, skip change or pas-de-basque?

Luz was spot-on about how wonderful the people are.  They were quick to welcome me and all of them were super helpful as I muddled through the dance moves. With SCDancing the etiquette is to have a different partner for each dance, so it was neat to get a chance to dance with a variety of patient, fun and helpful dancers. There was a fun range of dancing garb there too – everything from jeans and a t-shirt to full out kilts! Plaid was very popular on any article of clothing.

Coming out of the class I was both energized from having a great time and tired from dancing for 2 hours straight. My brain was full of dance move sequences and my heart was full from being welcomed so fully despite my obvious lack of dance experience.

Luz and I gettin’ our SCD on!

I had a wonderful time and I highly recommend that if you find yourself with the opportunity to go Scottish Country Dancing, you take it! Thank you Luz for teaching me and giving me the opportunity to experience the wonderful world of Scottish Country Dancing!

**Stay tuned for the next few new things I’m learning…a teaser – numbers 4 & 5 (which will be done in March) are out of province, and out of country respectively!!**