Bits to Move

If my theory is right that we are a small hump away from many sources of joy - dance is definitely one of those humps for me. What I lack in actual skill in moving my body in sync with the music, I occasionally make up for in enthusiasm. Where I came from, young girls learned to dance together making up various routines but for the most part boys stood aside. As we got older and boys and girls started to mix, 'dancing' consisted largely of standing in front of a DJ box shaking like epileptic chickens, or in really large circles rocking from side to side.

 Not sure whether it was me who cleared the dance floor

The Afrikaans chaps used to have a few tricks up their sleeves and so if you were cunning like a fox, you tried to learn from the langarm sokkie. A Sokkie is what seems like a blast from the past. You still ask someone to dance rather than just being in the throng of people. You then literally go spinning on the dance floor with various over and under arm twirls. It is a lot of fun. Even then my repertoire is very limited.

Saying that South African men can't dance is very far from the truth. The advantage of having lots of cultures is when you realise that your little bubble just wasn't as much fun as some of the other bubbles. Time to get a bigger bubble. Here is an example of school boys dancing in another Saffa style - Kwaito.

One song that will get a lot of South Africans line dancing together is Mandoza's Nkalakatha, and you should get a few chaps (and certainly this chap) throwing their legs up in a Zulu Warrior dance if Johnny Clegg's Impi starts playing.

Dancing is a great way to release stress and with our sedentary lifestyles, a reminder to the body that we are still alive and need our bits to move. This epileptic chicken is going to make an effort to put in some time so that 'I can't dance' becomes 'I couldn't dance'.