Valentine's Day Dancing - Part 2

Last night, we went with friends to the Officer's Club at Ft. Belvoir for their Valentine's Day Dance. The evening went differently than we expected. It showed how important it is to be flexible.

First, there was a wedding reception in the ballroom where we normally dance. The Valentine's Day Dance was held in one of the upstairs rooms. The room was nice, though the dance floor was smaller than in the room downstairs. There were also more people attending than our usual Wednesday night crowd since this was a special occasion. The band was a 3 piece ensemble named "Arrow Band" with a drummer, keyboard,and saxophone player set up on the edge of the dance floor. The combination of a smaller floor, larger crowd and the band meant there was not much room for any fancy moves on the dance floor.

The second thing that happened was the saxophone player fainted. He recovered after being checked out by the paramedics and came back to finish the evening to the applause of the assembled company.

Since the dance at the O Club was coming to a close and we hadn't much opportunity to shake a leg; someone suggested that we go to Lioudmila's to get in some dancing. The Valentine's Celebration there began at 9:00 and ended at 11:00. There was a good crowd there also, but plenty of room to move around the floor. They also had a mini-showcase with some fantastic dancing featuring the Rhumba, Jive, and Waltz.

The evening got off to a rocky start but ended well. We got a good dinner, some dancing and the saxophone player recovered.

Valentine's Dance at Studio One

We went to a Valentine's Day dance last night at Studio One of Alexandria. We've taken ballroom dance lessons there from Richard for going on 4 years. Included in the cost of the lessons is the Friday night dance. It is obstensively for practice. However, practicing sounds like work to perfect your skills. The Friday dance accomplishes this but we're really there for the fun of it. We start our weekends on Friday night from 9-11 PM by joining our friends for social dancing.

There was a good crowd last night with all the ladies looking pretty snazzy in their red dresses. Leslie brought in a "Build your own boyfriend" kit that was a great hit with the ladies. They never did put any pants on him though. Kind of reminded me of the Naked Cowboy in Times Square. Everyone had fun as we celebrated with Cupid and also had cake for everyone with a birthday in February.

Lessons in Swing

We've learned a couple of new swing steps from Richard lately. Doris saw an ad for some weekend workshops by Gotta Swing so we decided to try them out to add some additional pizzaz. The first class was Aerials 101 with Sue and Gary on Saturday to learn some dips, leans and aerials. We aren't much for the aerials, but we did get a couple of steps to add to our swing.

Today, we went back for the Flash and Trash with Michael and Poppy where we picked up a couple more moves for our swing. The instructors for both classes were very good and we really enjoyed them. We always like a good swing.

Back in the Saddle(shoes)

We were out of commission most of January. First Doris had a cold and then I had one. We did go out a couple of times but missed out on some dancing so we wouldn't be spreading germs.

We attempted to make up for it this past weekend. We were invited by some friends to go out with a group on Friday night. There were about 10 couples. Most of them we had seen at different venues. We also got invited by Joy and Tony to go to the Fort Myers Officer Club on Saturday night. We had a good dinner both nights and got in some dancing.

On Sunday morning, we redeemed the coupon we won at the Sock Hop for a free dance lesson. We met Cookie at a local studio and she showed us some Country Two-Step. Every once in a while you hear a song that will fit and it's good to be prepared. In the afternoon we went to the Candy Factory for the 1st Sunday dance at 4:00 pm. We really got in some dancing this weekend. After the Candy Factory, a group of us went to dinner.

During dinner I had one of those "It's a small world" moments. I was speaking to a gentleman sitting next to me and found out he had retired from the Army also. We got to comparing notes and he had been my company commander when I was a student at the Computer Programming School located at Fort Benjamin Harrison back in 1979-80. That's such a long time ago that I don't really remember. Of course, the only time a student ever got to see the Commander was when he was in trouble. I managed to avoid that.