Adventures in Dancing

Well, so much for regular blog posting over the summer. I am thinking that a combination of irregular writing practice, The Day Jobbe, doom-scrolling on Instagram, family duties, and a desire to have a blog post that is a polished, 2000 word essay has kept the posting down. So, yay, Autumnal goals!

My latest activity is Dragon Dancing. When I was researching dance poi, I stumbled across a Seattle-based influencer waving around a long, sinuous, LED-laden, zero-porosity, dragon banner in gyring arcs. And I thought, “Wow! That thing glows in the dark!” After a month of wishy-washy deliberations, I ordered one.

My dragon is blue, with white LEDs running along his fabric sides. He has a purple-highlighted Chinese dragon head, so he’s got glowing antlers, glowing white eyes, and he’s got a glowing red ball in his mouth. His rope leash clips into the ball. I whirl him around in circles and his fabric body traces spirals. I have to make sure to keep my back to any shifty wind or else the dragon’s body will sideswipe me, tangle around my feet, or the tail will whapp me in the face.

Holding the leash near the clip results in very tight circles, which have to be combined with a lunge or a full body turn so that the dragon takes a corkscrew path. Holding the leash at the handle end results in wide, slow arcs that can reach about fourteen feet in height; with the dragon’s body unfurled in this way it’s easier for it to act like a windsock. Adjusting the distance from the leash’s clip to my hand changes the period of the dragon’s swing, allowing for me to sync up with the beat of whatever music I’m listening to; I’ve made a Dragon Dancing playlist to help me keep track of session length.

It turns out that this is a dance and movement form that older people in China do. So, yay, I’ve landed on an age-appropriate behavior? There’s a lot of arm waving and lunging to get the dragon ribbon going, and my fitness tracker frequently thinks I’m swimming when I do it. I’ve decided that it’s good cardio, and I’ve been aiming for 45 minute sessions. Mark calls it “fast Ti-chi.”

I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to get hot pecs or bulging biceps Dragon Dancing, though, as I’m currently doing a lot of jumprope type motions with my shoulders, elbows, and wrists—however, I do notice that my posture is improving, that I feel more limber afterwards, and that the repetitive motion results in a toned look. And 45 minutes gets me sweaty, which is a plus because Mark appreciates it and “sweat is fat crying.”

After about a month, my repertoire consists of a figure-eight figure, a four leaf clover figure, circles of varying sizes, and a corkscrew. Continuously. For forty-five minutes. I recently saw a YouTube video where a performer whirled her dragon ribbon around her, overhead like a lasso, which I can do if the wind isn’t blowing too fiercely. I have a feeling I look like a western dance sequence from Xanadu. I suppose I need to pick up a few more moves; I think there’s one where you can make a large, Doctor-Strange-portal motion with the dragon-ribbon and then hop through it. I also need to curate my dance playlist to fine-tune it; when the right Dead Can Dance tune comes on it’s easier for me to put footwork and full-body motion into the routine, which helps to make the dancing feel less mechanical. And probably makes me look like a dance-flow hippie.

Yes; I sometimes dance with the Moon. Sometimes I dance with the sun and my shadow. But mostly right now I dance with the wind, because if I don’t I tend to get smacked by a dragon tail.

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In other, Old Gay News: I was going to go dancing the other night, but wound up staying home because I couldn’t find my stupid ear-plugs. I spent about an hour and a half—all dressed up in in a club vest that Mark bought me, black pants, raven earrings, rings, and a glow-in-the-dark bracelet—armed with a mini-maglite to help me actually focus my perception, looking through desks, tables, shelves, medicine cabinets, drawers, bookshelves, counters, room dividers, mantels, car gloveboxes, travel bags, backpacks, jacket pockets, pants pockets, under beds, under shelves, and under baseboard heaters for the stupid black, round, pillbox shaped case that holds my hearing’s salvation. I found my library card, an actual pill box, numerous pens, a pencil sharpener, and an embarrassing quantity of dust and shed animal fur.

Mark was asleep.

It was quite vexing. I tried to put a “this is the Universe saving me from encountering a gunman on an e-bike near Agate and 18th” spin on it, but I was so put out by the failure to find them that I doom scrolled on Instagram and groused about gay community and “doing gay things.”

I am sure my earplugs will turn up as soon as I order replacements.