Slow drag night was again fun. I think I would say it is the highlight of my week. One of the best things about slow drag night is that people dress up smart. Some people see it as a good opportunity to find a date, and they go all out with the grooming. The girls were beautiful! I wore my smart flanel trousers, waistcoat, and vintage tie, which are going to have to survive another two slow drag nights before I can dry clean them, so I am not wearing them for anything else. Dave Madison taught a beginner's blues evening class and an Australian guy called Chris (I think) taught a blues polyrhythms evening class, which I attended. The latter class claimed that blues dancing has a continuous history for 150 years, but in order for this to be true you have to widen the definition to include a lot of other african-inspired hip-wiggling dances, all the way to Salsa! He also claimed that Lindy Hop is based on only two dances. I think he must be a bit loopy. The class was fun but not terribly inspiring. The main message was that you can do one rhythm with your upper body and another with your feet, but the only combinations we did were 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4 ratios. Hardly rocket science! He taught us an authentic (i.e. old) footwork and hip-wiggling basic which he called a "grind". The blues social dancing happened in the ballroom of the Folkets Hus as usual. The music was pretty good, despite the restrictive Herräng policy. It was popular, but blues dancing is naturally quite small, so there was plenty of space, and I had some good dances. Downstairs in the Dance banana the Carlings Family Band were providing entertainment for the hardcore Lindy Hoppers. The stage occupied a significant fraction of the room, and the band were great as usual, so it was packed. The best dance I got was to their 360bpm finale Tiger Rag, which sent most of the dancers to the sidelines because it is so fast. I had to stop to tie a shoelace but honestly a little goes a long way at that speed! The library is dedicated to Balboa this week. Letting even a single Lindy Hop couple loose would cause total chaos, so it's basically off-limits for me. However, it is very popular and I'm sure it is helping to make space on the other floors.