MOOP!

A *long* time ago, mek titled me The Demigoddex¹ of Dance. Think...mid 00's, so it's a title that I've had for a decade and a half or so, the better half of my life so far. And it's a title that has brought me a lot of comfort and thought over time. It's fascinating to me that mek was able to See Me in My Power when I was _that young_, but maybe there's just confirmation bias at hand, and all the goofy stuff he called me that I *didn't* throw my heart and soul into dropped away.

Anyways, I am a Demigoddex of Dance, and what that means is that dance is a thing I have incredible power around and through and with. And probably what you thought when you heard that was "yes, I have seen Kat at Scottish or Contra or Squares and they do seem to be pretty enthusiastic and fun to dance with!" You are not wrong if you think that, but you're also not entirely hitting the point of the thing.

If you wanna see me full into my power as Demigoddex, you need to see me dance like no one's watching. Bouncing-twirling-thrashing-rebounding, music too-loud from the speakers or piped into my ears alone, arms gone windmilled and catching myself on the surrounding architecture. Almost certainly if you see me like this, I'm not going to see you --I usually close my eyes.

And it's not about being Seen, it's not a _performance_ for other people to watch. Even when I do this goofy solo dancing in public spaces (Arisia comes to mind) it's not about the rest of the population. This is a chance for me to apply music directly to my body, and that makes it a chance to fully release my Aspect. It's a chance to _play_. I know because I am just as enthusiastically into it when I'm doing it in an empty room as when I'm doing it in a crowd².

And it's a _damn_ good warm-up for me. This is often how I'll loosen up my body before some kind of dancing thing, just informally flailing like a fool until the person leading brings us into more organized stretching. Hop-twist-skip-swing and the shoulders loosen out and the ankles find their balance and everything falls into place.

On Sunday, just before my candidate exam, I spent fifteen minutes or so in an otherwise empty room dancing like an utter fucking fool. It was an accident, I just went in there to listen to too-loud music³ as a form of centering, of prayer. But then I was alone in the upper balconies of a former church, and there was room enough between the pews, and I had too-loud music!

It's a wonderful way to loosen my body. More often it's done though to loosen my mind. This is a thing I can do to make everything right again, even just for a short time. It doesn't solve any problems, it doesn't change the world, but for five-ten-twenty minutes while I'm moving, it takes me out of the rest of it and puts me into something here and now and loud and wonderful. For lack of a better term, it's meditation, even though it's done at full tilt movement and sound.

I'm fair sure I passed my candidate exam. My lesson felt _good_, the compliments I received have been kind. I know what I needed to do, and after all, Scottish Country Dancing and Teaching are the only two things in the world I'm allowed to feel any arrogance about. But Sunday, the part that mattered to me, the part that felt like happiness and existence and all that is right in the world was not the part I did in front of the examiners, and with my class.

It was one small body in one large space and a small handful of songs. It was flushed and panting and red with exertion before the lesson even began. It was a demigoddex gathering their power, ready to present it in full control and majesty. It was dance, and it was lovely and it was exactly what I needed for that moment.

Demigoddex of dance. That's me!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Okay, technically he named me the Demigoddess as I was more a girl at the time. Apparently I really like the way the gender-neutral x signifier sounds in goddex, in a way I don't particularly care for in princex. I'm curious as to what's different enough linguistically to make my ear feel that way.

2: Actually, maybe inversely so --in a crowd I need my eyes open more often and my movements slightly more restrained to avoid the rest of y'all.

3: I'll tell you where the real road lies / between your ears behind your eyes / that is the path to paradise / and likewise the road to ruin

((I sing songs differently from the known lyrics sometimes, when the power in the words matters.))

PostScript1: Here are two related posts that came up in my writing, but then I didn't actually wind up including.
*This is a very long post from NYFaerieFest a few years ago. It talks about how s00j is a goddess unto my eyes, and the way for me to handle that is to summon my own aspect around me and let my magic respond to her own.
*This is a post from 2010 that may be the *definitive* post about me and dancing. I am incredibly lucky that I truly lack the social anxiety that stops people from managing to actually "dance like nobody's watching". I have danced on subway cars and platforms, on rain-soaked streets, on empty dance floors and in empty classrooms. Sometimes other people are around to see. It doesn't stop me.

PostScript2: Last fall, I was out Doing Bells at Smith for the first time, and I was having a No Good Very Bad Brain day, because that was right in the middle of my brain being shit about bells. There was a tiny little studio with mirrors on the wall and a sprung-wood floor, and yanno, my brain was broken anyways, so why not.

The studio had a balcony above, and people could overlook and I dunno if they mostly did or not (recall I dance with my eyes closed⁴) but afterwards choco_frosh complimented me and asked what I was practicing for.

It was such a funny question, practicing. I don't remember exactly what I stammered back, because my dance is not practice for anything except itself.

4: This was an instance where that turned out to be a _very bad idea_. I have better than average proprioperception⁵, but it isn't perfect, and that studio had very rough brick walls with the bricks all set at odd angles to each other. Head-cuts bleed a lot. Slamming your head into a wall by accident because you didn't realize you were That Close is not fun.

5: I mean, probably? I have no idea what average is, but mine seems very good.

Ahem:

The Pinewoods Eel
A 32 bar hornpipe* for three couples danced in a four couple set
Dedicated to KateFace, the first victim of the Eel.

1-8: 1s and 3s dance full figures of eight around the standing 2s, 1s casting and 3s crossing up to begin. On bars 7+8, 2s step up to the top, and 1s cross into the center, ending back to back facing own sides (as in Double Triangles).

9-16: All three couples dance NORMAL double triangles**.

17-20: 1st man with the 2s and 1st woman with the 3s, dance right hands across.

21-24: First couple, followed by their respective couples, pass by the left shoulder and "eel" around the outside of the set, to end in the order 3-1-2 with the 1s improper. All three couples end in the center of the set in promenade hold, 3s and 2s facing up, 1s facing down.

25-32: All three couples dance a circular "eel"amande***: 3s and 2s dance a normal allemande (leaving a space between them on the mens side of the dance), 1s dance an inverse allemande. On bars 7+8, 1s turn half by the left hand to end on their own side, in progressed places.

The dance repeats, having passed a couple.

*************

*This is Austin's fault, because a hornpipe is, after all, a reel with a nautical flavour
**I am emphasizing normal because this is otherwise the first sixteen bars of that similarly titled dance. Total coincidence, I'm sure.
***This is jere7my's fault. If you want to make things worse, you can also call them Double Triangeels.

This dance was successfully danced the first time at Cambridge Class, 2018 07 30. It's a pretty damn delightful dance, if I do say so myself! Big shout out and thanks to my workshop helpers --jere7my, Kendra, Alex, Jerome, Howard, and Laura-- who helped me get everyone on the correct side, as eel-egantly as possible.

This dance is totally Creative Commons and welcome to be danced whenever by whoever. Just let me know if you do because I will be Very Excited.

At 6:56 this morning, I finally dragged my bleary ass upright. I have found checking my email early in the morning can help jumpstart the "actually awake" part of the day, so I glanced at my phone.

Just 7 minutes prior, Julie Parr had sent me an email with a subject line of "Unit 2/3 Results". Oh gods. I always thought I was going to be the last to know, that they were going to come while I was at work and not able to check my mail. I never dreamed I'd be the first to see 'em.

And I read the email...and it doesn't matter what it said, because I am only one person out of a team. The thing that matters is that my brilliant and talented dance-sibs made it, not me.

***

(An aside that I find fascinating: I have been having serious brainweasels about the fact that I have seemed to myself to be far more mean then I would like. It's not a matter of girl socialization per se so much as a wish, a desperate wisk, that I were a better hufflepuff. Being as I have been worried by this latent capacity for brusqueness in myself. (not cruelty, never intentionally cruel, but I have been impatient and more efficient lately than nice --some would find it admirable, I am not sure it's a change for the better, even as I recognize that nice should only be a baseline and is not as important as kind.)

So it was unexpected, and deeply reassuring, to realize that my empathy was in force in such a capacity as to make it actually impossible for me to think about my scores. All my anxiety and hope and fear and crossed fingers and whispered prayer (St Genesius, pray for us) was bound up in THEM. My classmates, my team, my family, my nakama. My own scores are irrelevant as long as THEY made it.

The depth of emotion I feel about this is astounding to me. If you ever wondered, I am not a sociopath. (If you've never wondered, suffice it to say I have.))

***

So there we go. Just short of 7 AM, I've pulled out the real keyoard (too important to type on the phone) and sent off the first email in the "congratulations/commiserations" thread. And then the hard part: Waiting.

At 9:30 AM, I'm standing in the copy room as the RISP whirrs. I check my email again.

All of us.
All five of us.
Both units, ten total exams out of ten, perfect score. We all made it.

I want to cry, and I don't, because that would be hard to explain even as a good thing what with the red eyes and runny nose. I also want to jump for joy, and I do because dear goddess, I am so happy and pleased for this and I've never really let the presence of other people dictate my reactions of happiness. The teachers standing by the main copier do not seem to notice, anyways.

We passed. We all passed. There are five new level one teachers in the Boston branch and they are us!

***

Every
Other
Saturday
For
Eight
Months
We hauled our collective asses to Stow, and if you're local and thinking "that's so far!" oh honey, Connie drove down from motherluvin' Burlington VT! Stephen and I had the short commute, "only" an hour each way to bracket our five plus hours of dancing.

In the weeks between those Saturdays, we read and read and read and read and wrote lesson plans and talked our dances and sent each other snarky texts and practiced our dancing at our own weekly classes --o gods, did we practice.

Hit your thirds, more extension, sink and surge, THIRDS, hands up, hands in, hands relaxed, DON'T LOSE THOSE THIRDS, turnout from the hip, lift from the ankles, tuck in the tuchas, you're still hitting third position, right?, make eye contact across the circle, cover across the set, smile at your partner, and don't forget this is fun, look like you're having fun!

(it was fun. It was also intense. The two states are not mutually exclusive.)

Maybe sometime I will scan and put up the weekly quizzes Gregor wrote for us, every week talking about more figures and our 12 candidacy dances to perform and how to teach better and dance better and BE better. They remain ridiculous, so much of the work remains ridiculous, but every single one of us passed and I can't speak ill of our training, not with that in mind.

I have not been so proud of myself since I realized I knew how to juggle. I am so, so happy words can't even say that our little congratulations party is going to be only that when we have it. I am looking even more forward to ESCape than previously, because daaaamn, we're all gonna be there and it's gonna be *great*.

I'm a certificated dance teacher. Fuck. Yes.

~Sor
MOOP!

(Of course, this is only my level 1, there's still 2 years and two more units before I get my level 2 and full teachership. It's okay, it'll come. I've been spending way too much time this week hyperfocused on the future. It is nice to think just about being happy with the present for a little while.)