Date: 2013-01-10
To: 2200-mile dance card
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Unlikely background in dancingContra dancing has been a large part of my life ever since I was first introduced to it in July 2011. My introduction to this community was a strange one, involving a very specific series of events in June and July of 2011.In addition to the previously mentioned Maine mission trip my home church runs every other year, they run a Guatemala mission trip every year. This is another service trip, and it typically involves a medical mission and construction project. In 2011, this Guatemala trip was anticipated to be too large for one team, so two teams were set up. These teams were to be back-to-back weeks in June. The Maine mission trip was also running that year, and it was schedule to begin one week after the second Guatemala mission trip ended.At this point, I was still a part-time employee. I was working heavily, but without the responsibilities of a full-time employee to necessarily hold me in place. In 2010, the Guatemala trip was split into two back-to-back teams, and I was on both of these teams. I chose to do that again in 2011. I also wanted to go on the Maine trip. Instead of working for the week between these two trips, I chose to take that time off as well, and go to Maine for some camping and hiking before the mission trip.It was in Guatemala that I first heard about two things. The first, as you can anticipate, was contra dancing. Someone else on the first week of this mission trip told me a little about contra, and they told me they thought I would enjoy it. I told her that made no sense - I had never even thought about dancing before in my life, and I could not imagine myself doing such a thing. I dismissed this concept.The other thing I heard about in Guatemala was couchsurfing. I heard about this from someone else on the mission team. This individual had aspirations to wander about the country, using couchsurfing as a part of his planned experience. This idea seemed much more interesting to me. The second week of the Guatemala mission trip was cancelled, as the anticipated interested did not pan out. By the time that had been determined, I had purchased an airfare that would have me in Guatemala for two weeks. I stayed there anyways, at a Mennonite mission in Guatemala City. While I was staying there, I joined the couchsurfing website. I mentioned on the Maine message board that I would be spending a week there with no plans.The individual that got back to me before I went to Maine was a young woman living in a town near the park I was camping in. Communications were not easy - I primarily utilized a couple businesses with wifi to send emails. I was finally able to meet with my host on Friday, the day before the church mission team arrived. It just happened that she was going to a contra dance in Canaan, Maine that night. I was invited to come along and try it out. I figured I would give it a try, as I was far from home in Maine, and nobody would have to know it ever happened if I didn't take to it.Once I was at the dance, I sat out for a little bit before trying it out. As far as beginners go, I must have been pretty bad. Somehow, I suppose there was a spark of interest present in me then. The week after the Maine mission trip ended, I went to my first dance at my hoe dance in Princeton. Currently, I average three dances per week, and have attended dances and dance weekends from Maryland to Maine. I choose to surround myself with the members of this community as much as possible, for they make excellent company.Comprehensive preparation for dancing the AT corridorI will be absent from my local dance communities while I am on the Trail, but I do not plan to let that stop me from dancing. One of my goals during my walk is to dance as often as is feasible. This is looking to be the most time-consuming part of my preparations, but I look forward to the flavour this will add to my walk. Ideally, the homework I am doing will encourage future dancers on the Trail to mix dancing heavily into their walks.The first big step is finding all the dances near the Trail. The folk dancing community is not always great at technology, and information on dances can be hard to come by. I have started tracking down dances with a few websites that post schedules and information on dances, including regional and all-inclusive websites. I have a Google map which I am using to plot all the towns within roughly 50 miles that are host to dances, including some dance weekends that I may be able to attend if the timing works out.At this point I have checked a few sources, checked the locations of dances they mention, and plotted out potential dances for the entire Appalachian Trail corridor. My next step is to investigate the individual dances. This will definitely be a lengthy process, and involves reaching out to every dance I have on my map to confirm they exist, and to confirm their schedules if they do exist. Even if some dances have an up-to-date website, I will reach out to them at this point just to open communications with them.Once I determine that a dance still exists, I move to the next step in planning my potential attendance of that dance. At this point I determine the easiest crossroad that gets me from the Trail to the dance. This gets marked in my trail guide, with a small entry next to the crossroad that has the dance name. I will probably keep all the other information on dances in a separate document, so I can include adequate information without cluttering up my trail guide too much. Once I have such a document compiled, I will certainly put it online for future dancers to utilize on the Trail.At this point I also communicate further with the dance. I ask them if any community members may be able to help me get to/from the dance, and maybe provide me with a shower before the dance and a couch to sleep on afterward! I hope to come up with at least two contacts willing to help me in this way at each dance, so that I increase my chances of reaching a dance if I am passing through the area at the right time.Go with the flowI will probably not hear back from all the dances before I start my walk, but I will bring my documentation to be as complete as I can before I set out. I have plenty of time to hear back about most of the dances, anyways. If it takes a New England dance three months to get back to me, that's okay in this case! Anyways, once I am on the Trail I just go with the flow and make it out to dances whenever it is feasible. The only dances set in stone are the Atlanta dance before I start my walk, and as many of my local dances as possible when I am passing through the Midatlantic.Additionally, plan to attend at least two longer dance events. One is pretty out of the way, near the coast of Massachusetts. This one is a week-long dance camp - American week at Pinewoods, for you dancers reading this. (Why aren't you dancing right now? You should probably be dancing.) The other one is a new dance weekend that a favourite dance band, Perpetual e-Motion, is putting on in Maine. This weekend is in early October, and should be an excellent event to attend following my walk. If I finish my walk with some time to spare before this weekend, drifting around Maine for a week or two or more is not the worst thing in the world!All of this planning will bring about excellent moments throughout my adventure. These moments may be 50 days and 1000 miles in the future, or up to 270 days and over 3000 miles in the future. I look forward to all of these moments.Peace,