Step, Step, Rock Step

another college essay

 

Step, Step, Rock Step

Sensing peril to his carefully constructed image, Ian searches desperately for an exit. Swing Dance Club members block the door. A girl approaches, taking his hands as she introduces herself,

Hello, I’m Adiel. Do you already know the basic step?

Ian, having given up on finding an escape, now checks to make sure there is no one he knows, acutely conscious of the damage that being seen in Swing Club could do to his image. The tug on his hands calls him back.

Step step rock step. It’s very simple: Mirror me.

The girl is calm, friendly, but fiercely insistent. Ian has no choice. The basic steps are simple, and soon Ian relaxes.

Okay, now I’m gonna teach someone else, so you can dance with Sandra. But first let me show you one more thing…

Ian is caught off guard--there is mischief in her eyes. It is her one technique to make sure new members stay. She backs up; her right arm catches his left. She turns, jumps, and Ian finds himself dipping her to the floor. In Ian’s mind, swing turns from “lame” to “cool.”

 Chattering voices from the lunch tables outside sweep into the music as the door opens, and three girls pull a reluctant junior into the room. It is Jarrod, a football player that Ian recognizes. Alarm spreads over Jarrod’s face. Ian smiles; he rushes to join the other members in blocking the door.

       As the girl who couldn't catch a ball, it is ironic to find myself the leader of the Swing Dance Club. I'm not a natural dancer, but persistence paid off. After discovering swing at a church event, I practiced on my own using everything from youtube to formal lessons. Officially obsessed, my friend and I organized free lessons to teenagers over the summer, using her backyard as a "studio." Swing took off from there.

       I extended my passion into our high school this year, forming the Great Oak Swing Dance Club, where we meet three to four times a week during lunch and after school to practice. I act as president, organizer, and instructor as well as the one responsible for events. Swing Club has recruited one percent of the school, at about thirty members. I am extremely proud of swing club, and thoughts of it constantly fill my mind. Running the club has not only taught me all the responsibilities that come along with motivating, organizing, (and recruiting!) people, but also the joys and rewards, and perhaps hazardous obsession that comes from following your love. I am the girl back spinning between class periods, writing every IB essay around 1920’s youth culture, and scheming of ways to get the shy boy in the back of class into swing club. School for me has become a virtual swing dance world, I have developed the useful ability to relate anything from music, fashion, literature and physics to East Coast Swing. I say “useful,” because I realize that when you put something into a perspective that interests you, you will love doing it.  

Without a doubt, I like swing due to the fact that I use it to break down the frustrating barriers of image that so many high schoolers hide behind. Swing also offers me a productive, clean way of having fun which replaces the accepted “freak” dancing or passive activities such as going to movies or playing video games. It is active and challenging, with just the right amount of danger. Swing dancing has not only helped me personally to overcome a comical lack of coordination, but has become a passion that I can share with others. And would you believe I won third place in a swing dance competition last weekend?!