Between SCA events, cons, and various festivals and whatnot, I've been to a LOT of volunteer-run events in my life. ATLX was one of the best. It got me to thinking...

SCA and fandom are similar in a lot of ways; one of them is a surfeit of chiefs and a big, serious dearth of indians. After all, half the reason you *get* into SCA or fandom is to escape the rules a bit. So you've got this big group of fierce individualists; getting them all to point in the same direction is, shall we say, challenging. Herding cats, of course, comes to mind.

Dancers, though...well, it's a culture built around leaders and followers, isn't it? Part of good dancing is learning the interaction between those two roles: the follow doesn't just go limp and get hauled around the floor, and the lead doesn't just execute moves and yank his partner along for the ride. Maybe that constant interchange seeps into other aspects of living.

(Disclaimer: this is not an insult to any particular event I've been to recently...nor even to say that, say, the Dragoncon staff (hi, guys!) doesn't do a bangup job...just a reflection on different ways of thinking and doing.)

Vague plans for "maybe I'll try to make it to the afternoon dancing in Decatur" disappeared in a haze of sleeping in, pancakes, and an afternoon nap...and I still didn't get more than four or five dances in at the Sunday night dance before calling uncle and heading home for a soak in the tub.

I think the moral of the story is that I am either too old or too out of shape to dance all night three nights running. But it sure was fun to try.

I tried yesterday to get to Piedmont Park for the afternoon dancing in the pavilion there, but they blocked off the entrance to the park when the parking lot filled up, and Aaron couldn't even get in to drop me off. Since I wasn't sure how far a walk it would be from Monroe St. to the Pavilion, we aborted the mission and went out for lunch. Except it was more like dinner, since it was 4pm by then.

Just as well I missed the afternoon dance, since dunch at that hour gave me time to get in a nap before the evening dance. Mention deserves to be made here of the band, Still Swingin, who just knocked our socks off with a speed lindy jam circle (which I just watched--I'm dancing well this weekend, but I know my limits).

So what do you do when it gets to be midnight and you've been dancing since 9? Get some food and go dance some more, of course! The late-night venue was almost as crowded as the early one, and I I was a bit wobbly on my feet by that point, but still dancing relatively well.

Today? Well, I got in last night around 3am, slept all day, and feel as if I've been hit by a bus. About to head out for dinner and more dancing. What else?

Scene: Dancing with Matt, a student at Emory. The music slows to a break, and he doesn't catch it soon enough to make the lead look smooth.

Me: Yeah, I never know what to do with those either.

Matt (growling): I'm a music major.

Tonight I danced the fastest swingouts of my dance career. Dear lord. I think I need a cigarette.

I was a little nervous about a dance weekend that was just social dancing, and no workshops. I like the security of a workshop environment, where I don't need to exert myself socially to get a partner, and where I get to practice the same thing over and over; unlike on the social floor, where a new move may fly by me so fast that missing it means just that--missed it, so sorry, hopefully it will come up again sometime.

When I first started Lindy hopping, I was too shy to ask for partners, because I didn't know anyone. Now that I know people, I'm too shy to ask for partners, because I also know they're all better than I. ATLX combines both inhibitions--people come in from all over the South, and anyone willing to drive six hours to a dance weekend is a hard-core, dedicated dancer. The difference is that they don't know I'm not such a good dancer yet, so I don't have this constant feeling of, "I know we've danced before and it's been sort of mediocre, but would you mind taking pity on me again?" And, as skellington points out, there are enough people here that I can dance with a different person every dance all weekend long, and not inconvenience anyone more than once.

Plus, I learn stuff this way. I followed three new Lindy moves tonight, none of which I could repeat for the life of me. Three people tried to Bal with me. It worked, sorta. And Mr. Fast Swingout slowed down enough to remind me of a Charleston pattern I used to know and only half-remembered.

So my workshop this weekend is "How to Follow Any Lead."