after that, you may dig some of these links, though it's hard to exceed the power and wallop of that first freakazoid performance. he really fooled those fucks, with a strategy i know well.

• multiple vids at YouTube (lotta dupes)
• his page at a site he shares with 3 other dancers
• short article on the VW golf GTI gene kelly commercial
• good short interview re golf GTI commercial
• short interview
• the clip from this site is linked at his as well, but it's one of my faves because there's no music — lets him favor the fluidity he does very well.

you may be surprised by how together this dude is mentally. worth reading some of his text stuff, especially here and here (both linked already).

dancing is something i wish i'd started much earlier. whatdya gonna do when you're raised in a family of dorks, and happen to be a dork yourself? you avoid dances at school, and miss out on some of the best in life. then when you finally see the error, it's damned frustrating to catch up. i admire people like david elsewhere and many unknowns more than you might believe. have spent many hours at swing dances just marveling at what people can do.

had a regular swing dance partner a few years ago, and we videotaped ourselves at the height of our paired ability. freaked me out that i wasn't as bad as i'd thought (had a couple of moves i'd envied in others early on), but... man, it's tough to watch somebody take to it and you're just flopping like a fish on deck! if you're learning to dance and you happen to read this, take my advice: switch partners regularly when starting out, even if only temporarily. my partner and i both screwed our dancing up by not rotating enough, though it's easier for women to recover from bad habits when following, i think. she was much shorter than me. i adapted all my learning to her, and she to me. after we danced so much together, my leading fell off, because we knew our moves so well it didn't take much to transmit what i wanted. my limited dancing with others suffered drastically.

swing dancing is a tough one for a drip dude to get into. if you start at the same time as a female friend, within weeks she'll be out there with an experienced male, looking pretty good, while if you find an experienced female, she's only going to do what you tell her (as she should, if you're leading). frustrating! the DC swing community's great, because it's not a meat market, but a dance thing. so if you see a girl you'd like to dance with, no matter how hot, good, whatever, she'll usually be fine with it, long as you keep moving after one song.

first time i worked up the nerve to ask one of the pro girls for a spin, it was just a shambles. the top notch swing honeys do this thing called swiveling. you hold them out with a little bit of tension, and you sorta parade them around in a circle while they pivot their heels and swing their hips. classic move, and a lot of fun. even more fun is when two of the good guy dancers move into the center during a jam (circle of observers, w/2 spotlight dancers in the middle) and one leads. a real hoot when the lead guy puts the "girl" out for a swivel. he'll mimic the most elaborate version of the woman swinging her arm in the air while swiveling, and everybody loses it. interesting that the best girls and guys have usually learned to both lead and follow at least somewhat.

anyway, with the beauty of the ballroom all i had were my corny and few beginner moves. i thought swiveling was too cool, but had no idea what was involved. so since i was already making a disaster out of my first dance with the queen of the hall (beautiful woman and dancer), i just stopped dead and said, "um, how do i get you to do that [gesture like an oaf] thing?" can you believe that shit? i actually said, "get you to do". heh heh. she was nice as hell, and explained exactly what i needed to do. well, i worked into that, and she played along, helping me, and i just started laughing my ass off i was so thrilled to see this vision from another era on the end of my arm doing the swivel. never asked her to dance again; that's how i showed my appreciation.

this post has no end, which is why i sat on it for so long. hope you didn't make it this far.