In my school, we square danced in gym every year from 4th grade to senior year. I really liked the dancing, but the partner picking was excrutiating until I made some male friends. They just should have made us count off or something. In high school I also square danced at open square dances at a local college with a string band and caller, and I loved it (my firend's mom wanted to take her foreign exchange student, and then we just kept going!). If I had a partner, I would gladly do it again-- it was a ball.

I tap danced for 10 years and jazz danced for 5, but was only decent. I am a good musical theatre dancer.

I can sing on key, I think, and have a decent voice-- I was in the chorus of Bye, Bye Birdie and Bells are ringing in high school, as well as being one of Reno Sweeney's Angel's in Anything Goes and Gloria Thorpe (female sports reporter) in Damn Yankees. I was in chorus, band and vocal ensemble all four years of high school. The one year I auditioned and made all county chorus it was cancelled-- I was so dissappointed. And then, strangely I gave up singing and dancing

If you think about it, square dancing is just walking to a specific place to the beat, so it teaches being able to listen and respond to instructions and coordination even to those who have two left feet.

I had square dancing in 9th and 10th grade PE class. I sucked. I think I got a D one year and a B- or C the other. I just couldn't remember the steps, despite trying my best.

If you think about it, square dancing is just walking to a specific place to the beat, so it teaches being able to listen and respond to instructions and coordination even to those who have two left feet.

And it's not a sport, so you don't get into winners and losers. At least, not if they don't make you find your own partner (ew, Sophia!).

Can you play any instrument?

Nope. I did teach myself to play "Taps" on a harmonica though.

Hold a tune when singing?

Only because I've been singing lullabies to Emmett for nine years.

I do think there are varying abilities with eye-hand coordination, but very few people are really so deficient that they can't be taught to catch a ball. Mostly it's repetition and practice. Same with hitting. Emmett had thousands and thousands of swings with a whiffle bat before he ever played baseball.

I've danced with Jesse and Ple so their assertions that they cannot dance do not persuade me. The Ple dance had her wedged in between me and Amych during "Red Right Hand." That's a happy memory.

Who can draw?

If you think about it, square dancing is just walking to a specific place to the beat, so it teaches being able to listen and respond to instructions and coordination even to those who have two left feet.

I see the logic in this, but so does, say, aerobics. Most gym activities seem to involve those skills without the awful ickyness of boy/girl pairings.

I enjoyed the line dancing, however-- that did not involve partnering.

I don't know how to do Dances, is what I meant. And I thought it was what I said.

I don't know how to do Dances, is what I meant. And I thought it was what I said.

Fair enough. I did learn to waltz, though I do it crudely. I can't really swing dance, and there's no way I can learn the steps for theatrical type dancing.

At least, not if they don't make you find your own partner (ew, Sophia!).

Hell, I tell you! Hell. First it was boy's choice, then girl's choice. And even the choosers seemed to go by popularity (like we just lined up in our natural formation and the teacher started the choosing with the one end that had the popular people on it)

Also, did we know about Jon Stewart:

[link]

I box waltzed around Harvard Square one night in high school. Good times.

Okay, you square-dancing freaks. Now I understand why my schools had us playing dodge ball on rainy days in gym class.

When I've tried to work out by swimming I tend to get a little freaked out, because of the non-rational fear of drowning.

I find that trying to exercise via swimming is so boring -- I used to work fractions of how close I was to done on every lap -- that injecting some actual terror into the routine might make the experience worthwhile.