I used to dance

I've been in a bit of a weird mood ever since I had a conversation with Prettyboy a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about soccer, and he asked me if I played. Of course, my answer was no. It's not that I haven't thought about it in the past, it's just that I have only recently become interested in sport, and between work and study I've been avoiding taking on too many other commitments.

Especially things involving “teams”. I'm not the most reliable person in the universe, and I tend to try something for a few weeks before deciding whether or not I want to continue (usually not), and I don't like letting people down. I have a history of joining bands, never playing at the “gigs” (because I'm not good enough yet), and then getting myself into a situation where something “has to go”, and of course it's the band I haven't fully committed myself to, isn't it?

And, yes, I do have a history of this. I've done it at least twice - once with a pipe band in Tasmania, and most recently with a brass band. I kind of miss the brass band, but the rehearsals are on at a bad time on a bad night, and I never practised as much as I should have - even when I had time for such shenanigans. Okay, not really a sport, but I don't have a good track record with sport, either.

I almost took up baseball, once, but as an adult beginner, baseball kind of hurts. Most of the other adults playing are men who have played before. They can aim and they can throw really hard. Me? Well, I can barely catch and I bruise.

I've often enquired about taking up track cycling. I've tried several martial arts classes for the free “introductory lesson”. I've flirted with taking up fencing. I've tried taking up Capoeira Brazil on at least two separate occasions, and both times never made it past the third week...

My problem is that I don't want to commit to a team in case I end up letting them down, but the sports that are more individual in nature are too easy to drop when the going gets tough.

So when Prettyboy asked me if I have any “extracurricular activities at all” I could not answer in the affirmative. I have work and study, and that's all I can really keep myself committed to...

...Except...

I used to dance.

I joined the local Scottish Country Dancing group when I was 19, and managed to stick with that pretty much every week during my undergraduate degree and first teaching job. When I moved to Tasmania, I joined the club in Burnie, and attended more or less religiously. I can safely say I went dancing more often than I went to church, and I managed to get to church fairly regularly in those days. The club in Burnie was a wonderful, relaxed, casual, friendly affair, and I think one of the reasons I stayed in Tasmania after I quit teaching was because I loved the group I danced with. My best friends were a couple of people from church and most of the people I danced with, and eventually I managed to convince one of my church friends to take up dancing as well.

I think I danced solidly and regularly for six or seven years. I went to dance camps. I performed in displays in cultural festivals. I seriously considered going to a Winter School (but couldn't afford it at the time). Then when I came back to Queensland, for some reason I just petered out.

I started trying to go regularly, but it just became more and more convenient to not go. It seemed so much harder to drag myself out of the house again on a Monday night (Tuesdays, in Tasmania, were easier, somehow). Then I started the Masters, and a night course in German, and followed it with the Diploma/Graduate Certificate combo, and Monday nights became one of my primary study nights (or a night when I had classes to attend)...

And it just got to the stage where it's been about three years since I used to dance. At least five years since I danced regularly.

And that sounds like such a sad thing, really, that phrase: “I used to dance”.

I've been thinking about it a lot since that conversation, and every time I think about it I just feel a little bit deflated.

“I used to dance.”

I really should try to go back, but Monday night is so central to my study patterns now that I can't really give it up. Plus, my family are getting sick of never seeing me. I wonder if I could talk someone into starting up a club on Thursdays. I could easily make every second Thursday...