Anyone Can Dance Nightclub Slow Dancing

Years ago, when I first heard about Night Club Two Step, aka Night Club Slow Dancing, I immediately liked “the story” of Buddy Schwimmer and his sister making up the (early) dance between regular classes at their parent’s dance studio back in the 1960s.

The way I heard the story is they were often goofing off to the slow music played between classes and in hamming it up they came up with a set of “goof” moves, or, a “mock” routine that looked so good that the studio students started asking them to teach “it.”

I wasn’t there and this version of the origins of NC2S is probably mostly myth, but because it’s easy to remember, easy to repeat, and, a nice tale about, “No worries, just dance” I like it. Why let the real facts, whatever they are, get in the way of a good time?

This is a pretty good NC2S dance video – if you can keep in mind you do best, sometimes, to have fun while being serious. Yes… After all, what else can you do when some very slow song comes on about ENDLESS love, INFINITE passion, ENDURING good looks, and so forth - but “play along”?

It’s not like much of anything is really endlessly amazing, really infinite, or, really that big a deal romantically – especially in a nearly lifeless song that’s going to only last three to four minutes… What usually happens, if you must deal with real life facts, is that you want to dance, or, you’re already out on the floor and “this” song comes on. Sigh. OK, let’s just make the best of it, eh? (Of course, it could be a song you like, but…)

Johnson and Kozak don’t start their NCSD DVD where most teachers seem to - with what they call, “Side Rocks,” (and what other people call “the Salsa Step,” etc.) - but that’s probably fine since “people who never took a dance lesson” probably do most their slow dancing where they do start, with a “prom dance/dirty dancing” kind of snuggle move.

Actually, no, most people who never took a dance lesson probably don’t start there – they start with a more subdued “cling to each other clumsily and barely move from side to side” kind of thing. (Now, that’s infinite!) So, the starting move here is really “pretty racy” for most people. Sigh. OK, fine... Just start with the move standoffish “Side Rock” lesson (#4) and move on to the “Opening Out” and “Intermediate” moves that follow.

This DVD does seem to have some production problems. When you watch on the computer the headline says, “Anyone Cane Dance.” Talk about an odd title. But, “Cane dancing…?” Yeah, that could happen. Meanwhile, be sure and make use of the “Next” button on the screen, or, on your TV/DVD remote, to get to what are lessons 6 thru 10...

Again, most Night Club Two Step DVDs will start with “Side Rocks” and then have you open up, turn the girl, travel, travel and turn the girl, etc. That fits perfectly for me with “mock” dancing where you use big moves to ham it up, (No, really, it’s OK to have fun!) The earlier smaller moves on the DVD you can then go back and learn later to really put some “sizzle” into the standard “prom dance basic.” You’ll see what I mean… Anyway, an OK DVD…

If you haven’t seen a lot of NC2S, go to YouTube and watch several (dozen) NC2S videos. The moves on this beginner/intermediate DVD are always in most the routines, somewhere….

But, get on with it... It’s not like you really have, “fer-eveeeer!”