Dancing fool....

I am a dancing fool.  I readily admit to it.  Whenever you play a little fiddle music with a driving beat, I am on the floor  trying to keep up with it.  Play a little Liberty, or Fort Smith, or better yet, Soldier's Joy and I will be in dance heaven.

I love old time square dancing.  The above picture was taken several years ago when Andy and I started to learn how it is done here in extreme southern Missouri.  The fiddlers play at 140 beats a minute and the pace is fast and furious.  Each area of Missouri has a little different style of dancing and a few differences in fiddle music.  We dance hard and fast and when you are done with a set, you are usually drenched in sweat and breathing hard.

My favorite fiddle player once told me that he keyed on our set when he played a tune.  He claimed that the harder we danced the harder he played.  And I believe it is true.  The fiddle sets the tempo and the dancers keep it  going.

The dances I love are ones that have everyone going at once.  Some of them are Right Hand Lady, Chinese Puzzle, Whirl Like Thunder, and the ever popular Grandpa's Baby. 

It is amazing to me how the music can get you up and moving in nothing flat.  We danced in a nearby county at least twice a month.  The hall was full of people who were in their 60's, 70's and 80's.  You would look around and wonder how in the world some of these people could even make it in the door.  They walked slowly, stooped over and you could almost hear their bones creaking.  But they were there to dance.  And, by golly, when the fiddle started in, they would jump up like teenagers and move through the set with a smoothness and agility most 20-year-olds would envy.

I think the secret is in the music.  It just makes you feel good.  When I square dance all my troubles leave me.  I feel good.  My aches and pains, if I had any, are gone.  And I literally could dance all night.

We dance all three nights of Hootin an Hollarin.  We begin at 9 and are still here on the platform when the clock strikes midnight.  If the band could, we would ask them to play just one more.  Such dancing is good for you.  It gets your blood moving.  It gets your heart beating.  It is good for your soul.

And that is why I am a dancing fool.