I went out swing dancing at a local bar with my sister and her fiance. Both of them want to learn to swing dance, and where watching the people who knew what they were doing with great envy. They tried a couple of times, and then got frustrated.

My sister came up to me and told me that I need to teach J how to dance, since I'm a good teacher. (Funny aside: Back in 1995, I taught her first bf--my buddy N--how to do a basic box step while we were doing dishes. I washed, he rinsed and dried, and we did the box step side-by-side as we worked. 1-2-3, 1-2-3.) Keep in mind, I only know one, very basic swing step. Step, step, back-step.

So, J and I went out onto the floor and get him started on that step so that he had the timing right. Slow, slow, quick-quick. Then I let him know how to lead me. "You decide where we are going, and it's your job to tell me." After a little bit, he had picked up how to use both hands to guide me. We even worked up to a basic spin.

Then it was my sister's turn and I reversed what I was doing so that I could lead, and show her how to follow a lead. "You need to go in the direction my hands are sending you." It took me a minute to get my brain into the right mode. I'm not used to leading (not that I'm used to dancing, period) but after a little practice she was moving where I directed instead of trying to guess what I was going to do and getting it wrong. We also worked on the spin.

Finally, I put the two of them back together and while there was still some hiccups, they did pretty well. It made me feel a little glowy that even though I'm not a great swing dancer by any stretch of the imagination, I still managed to convey the concepts in such a way that they were able to pick it up and be comfortable. They are thinking about going out and taking lessons somewhere, which would be cool for them. I might like to do that myself, if I could find a partner.

I do think we might be going out and doing that again sometime.