Things I have Learned From Scottish Country Dancing

Me - On how SCD taught me how to keep smiling and get out of trouble.

This week is a bit flat. It's raining and I have been staring at spreadsheets all day. Today I used the phrase, "these are my favourite excel functions". But there is going to be Pizza soon, so things can only get better.

So this is a post about all of the useful Life Skills I have picked up through the medium of Scottish County Dancing.

Hear me out here. I have a theory.

SCD is real life in microcosm. There is effort, and social convention. Rules that Must Never Be Broken, and rules you can mess with in the right company.It is just that bit more predicable than real life. Dare I say, I am a good deal better at SCD than Real Life. Here is a handy graph to explain this.

Broken down, folk dancing is restricted. There are only so many figures, and they get tweaked and used, and thrown together in different ways. A dance worth it's publication will have these different figures thrown together in such a way that one fits in to the other like Lego, or the right two jigsaw pieces. And most of the time, once you've got the pattern, you get to do it another 7 times over so that you can look smug and pretend you knew all along.

And I had a head start on the whole lot of it. Teeny Dancing Me.

When I was little I went to dances. Cos my parents did, and that meant that dancing was a Grown Up Big Thing, and if there was a Grown Up Big Thing, I wanted to be doing it. Mini-me was a bit of a smartarse, and took great pleasure in getting the things right. So I joined in, and survived most things by following instructions very quickly. The best way to get someone through a dance they've never seen before, if to give them a snappy little instruction, the split second before they're going to need it, and then while they're doing that thing, give them the next one.
I remember a night in Newcastle where my partner for that dance got me through with nought but eye movements, either glancing in a general direction that I ought to be heading in, or giving me a look that said "stand still and stay there for a mo". Only the two of us knew I didn't have a clue.

So I can read those cues, the tiny bit of body language communication where the exact angle of someone's shoulders tells you that you ought to be doing a reel over there, with those people. So you launch in to the figure, and look like you know it all, and no-one knows that you don't have a clue if you don't look worried, and if you can follow the next little cue about the next little bit.

So my point is this. I have learned to bluff my way through SCD. On stage, or a dance floor, I can usually look fairly proficient. I've been known to bluff my way through calling a dance if there is one set on the floor walking through who know what's about to happen next.

And as I've pretty much spent my whole life doing this SCD stuff, I have spent my whole life not doing all those other normal things that you might do. My SCD frame of reference is bigger than my not-SCD frame of reference. This means that the vast majority of everything I have ever learned, is in some way connected to dancing.

Please make your own, categorised as you see fit.

This in mind, I give you a definitive list of Stuff I have Learned from Scottish Country Dancing. I hope you find it useful.

• Anything will fit if you only have enough safety pins. Bulldog clips in the same colours as your costume are similarly valuable. I went to work today in trousers with one hem pinned up, as it has been for months. This is normal, right. Oh, and white bulldog clips are like gold. Or drugs, or something rare and valuable.
• Tartan goes with everything. Right?

• Bagpipes trump all else in Parade situations. Always have a piper on hand.
• How to say "bagpipes" in most European languages.
• Dressmaking is about making the outside look like a garment. The inside is on the inside for a reason.
• Copying and Covering. Life skills.

I am 17, in America.

• Everyone looks better when they're wearing a huge expanse of white silk. Just 'cos. It also helps you get served first at the bar, and provides sufficient distraction for you to not get ID'd. 
• I have stage smile. I use it at work. A lot.

• How to do stage make up. I am much less capable, and much less practised at "normal" make-up. Also, how to do stage make up in the back of a moving bus.

Count the hands

• How to invent traditions. Like how it's a Scottish Tradition to paint the nails of Monsieur Le Mayor at every foreign town you visit. 
• Have multiple plastic competition smiles at your disposal. Rotate them. Pull faces whenever the judges can only see the back of your head. Wink at the judges. 
• I can tell a sprung wooden floor from the moment I step on it, and am quite violently opposed to carpeting large spaces. 
• When someone comes towards you at speed, hand outstretched, grab hold of it. Normal, totally.
• There is nothing you cannot do in costume.

Some analogy about climbing your way to the top.

• Lighting is everything.

• Folkies have the most fun.

Ah, that's better. Add to the list in the comments!