‘Do you want to shag?’
The first time a guy asked me this I couldn’t help but burst
out in a fit of girlish giggling laughter. ‘Did he just ask me what I thought
he did?’ was my first confused question. Apparently yes he did, but not in
quite the same way as I thought. Instead of asking me up to his bedroom to ‘get
it on’ he was actually asking me to dance! It turns out the word SHAGGING has
very different meanings in the Deep South than back at home in old England.
Oxford English Dictionary Definition: A dance popular esp.
in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s, and characterised by vigorous hopping from
one foot to the other. (rather than… well you know… sex!)
Readers, you should know that when it comes to dancing I am
no pirouetting guru. I in fact consider myself to have the terrible ‘two left
feet’ syndrome, unless of course, after a bottle of wine and Beyoncé is
playing, then I am fearless! I have not swing danced with any ostentatious named
jiving expert before. I have never ever line danced. In fact, I have never
really danced at all! Unless you count ballet lessons till around the age of 5,
but all I can remember from those was some rule about good toes and naughty
toes and pink leotards! Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to miss out on an
opportunity to learn how to shag, so I went out, eyes as wide as a deer in
headlights, to a bar called Jillians, where they hold weekly shag nights. My
face had fear written all over it. The bar was rammed with students paired boy
girl shagging their way to the music. I suddenly felt very unprepared, these
kids had been born and bred shagging all their lives as the ‘Carolina Shag’ is
actually the State dance. I knew I was going to be hopeless but I was going to
enjoy being hopeless all the same! Not only did I have the pressure of learning
this partner, holding sweaty hands jiggle, I also had to master the
synchronised dances that everyone breaks out into as if it were a pre-planned
flash mob. American’s love a good line dance as much as they appear to love
twerking (see previous post). At one point I found myself right in the middle
of a complicated line dance with no idea whether I was meant to be stepping to
the right, wiggling my butt or clapping my hands, but god it was fun, or rather
funny, at least for the people watching me thinking ‘she has no clue!’ My
favourites so far include ‘The Wobble’ and ‘The Cupid Shuffle’, not to sound
big headed or anything but I believe I’ve got the latter dance down to a ‘T’! (Although
it probably was the easiest one…)
It turns out that an evening of Southern Gents patiently
showing me the ropes was tremendous amounts of fun, better yet; zero alcohol
was consumed so there was no false confidence needed. However, I’m still only
learning so it’s going to take a while for me to become an expert shagger,
perhaps I should do some practice in the bedroom…
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