Ballroom Dance – the Male Headspace Game Changer

Ballroom Dance for All

I went to a Christmas afternoon do of the kind my mother used to tell me about –  a basket, ballroom dance party…probably one of the best fetes I’ll go to for the Season…courtesy of the Port Antonio amateur ballroom dance group led by a former Arthur Murray instructor.  Knock out, drop dead pool terrace venue overlooking the Rio Grande (Jamaica) Valley.  All sectors of society present, including the more unusual and happily becoming more usual social cross section.

So let me tell you the value of ballroom dance in changing headspace…one member is female, a tiny, fit, 61 yr old new entrepreneur who has just left a soul killing 22 yr relationship…she now has what the Spanish call and absolute RABIA (route word ‘rabies’ :)) for her newly learned dance skills.  Three males are young men from humble beginnings, trained in IT and out of work for now.  The little lady decided she’d found a way to keep them out of trouble…AND HOW…  To see these boys now is awe inspiring…we still have to work a bit on dress and grooming to acquire the polish of the ballroom but the head space and skill is there!  This is a good, solid intermediate group of lads who can look a dance partner squarely in her Tango eye and lead her.  They see themselves as male, accomplished and leaders…oh happy day…the key ingredients to the healthy male psyche.  Check out the younger men, older women pairing…nothing to it and they call her Auntie, but ‘it don’t look like no Auntie/Nephew business’ when we cut the rug, I can tell you.  There is a healthy element of fantasy that translates –  switces the headspace into believing you can be and do more, be bigger than you are…and we, tangoed, waltzed, merengued, jived, congaed and socaed!!!

I kind of dropped into the party by accident because of my mile long reputation of having a rabia for dance in general and my experience of it.  Weeeellllllll…there stood I on the fringes of the dance floor when one of these lads spotted me and raised the traditional macho ‘come here’ hand beckon.  I looked at him out of one eye and asked who he thought he was and admonished him to note that ballroom dance required manners and etiquette…he swept me into the circle and informed me the Tango was a man’s dance…I raised my eyebrows in amused disbelief and warned the lad not to ‘fly past his nest’.  It is a rare thing to see Jamaican marginalised males ‘step up’.   This little phrase and movie title is really what dance is all about for men.  It is a legitimate way to elegantly lead the female sex without threat to her modern ego and absolutely play to her biologically programmed wish to be led by a man.  It is ‘safe sex’ allowing not just physical but the more erotic mental interaction many women crave and to which few men pay attention.

The men who vociferously poopoo ballroom dance are the same ones who become intensely jealous of those who want to dance with their women…dance is inherently sexual and we all know it consciously or unconsciously…the more comfortable you are with sexual identity the more easily you ballroom dance.  Jamaicans’ history with ballroom dance is an exact metaphor for our sense of self, especially our men…we were avid dance partners till the late 60’s/early 70’s…now that skill has disappeared…we are fractured mentally…and though it used not to be, homosexuality is a new terror to us as well…all part and parcel.

So my advice is, if you want to improve your mental and physical health…find a ballroom dance groups.  It:

Is great exercise, re calories and improving coordination (grace, Usain is graceful is he not?!)

Usually ends up getting you to clean up and be nice to be near (grooming)

Is safe sex

Teaches men they can lead by guidance and not force

Creates a safe environment in which women enjoy being led

Gives the brain new learning work

Opens up your social circle, etc., etc.

Don’t just go and jump into any and every group, find a style and group that matches your personality like you would find a friend, doctor, etc., etc.  One size never fits all so go watch a few sessions of groups you’re considering joining FOR FUN…

Are they laughing and chatting and getting on together?

Are they happily bumbling through mistakes?

Is everybody equal and treated with respect?

Is it a level you can manager?

Is everybody HAVING FUN?

Don’t make the mistake of taking on sessions in a studio oriented to pros if just plain old fun is your aim…the atmosphere in these venues is RADICALLY different.  So get out there and shake a leg…!!!  Long live The Dance…!  If the world does end, I’ll die happy doing it :)!!!

(Of course that cap would have to come off as we progress :))

 

Condition Yourself for an Active Life!

Coach Justin's new book

Long overdue, Jamaica is taking preventive medicine most seriously via sports medicine because we’ve suddenly found ourselves to be world class in this arena!  Here, finally, is a book by a Jamaican, sadly, up to now, always abroad as our best educated often are, but it’s a start.  The thing is, we need to get our 3 Rs up to par with out medal winning on track so that people like Mills and Bolt can write or help write and not be written for…that’s the thing!  Bolt himself says he’s ‘not a reader’ so there has to be two sides to every story…we still need Caribbean readers and writers!

So here it is! We’re at the start!   Jamaican Justin Cresser, a  football coach and strength and conditioning trainer,  has written ” Total Soccer Conditioning: A  Ball-Oriented Approach”

The Condom Revisited…an appeal

Condom issues could be posted in the Sex department BUT I’m making a personal appeal to men to consider this post. 

Let me tell you what I know up front…if within your first few sex acts you didn’t get introduced to condom use, the horse is more or less through the gate.  You will find it difficult, after years of unprotected sex, to start using a condom.  What is worse is, the very time you need it most, the one night stand, is when you will find it most troublesome to manoeuvre because you could be under pressure to perform and you’re not going to want to learn something new at this point…  Be that as it may, hear me out…please…”The Generative Force of the Universe Has Been Bastardised”…what was once for fun and procreation is now wreaking havoc of illness, suffering, sterility and death on millions…and you’ll NEVER KNOW WHO IS WHO, don’t joke!

And guess what, we medics can categorise all we like, ‘sexually transmitted infections’, as the WHO publicises them, are misleading.  From experience in my practice, I say that easily 1/3 of urinary tract infections are also of sexual etiology…use common sense here…what’s the cause of ‘honeymoon’ cystitis?  Right!  Sex!  But guess what…it gets worse…cystitis these days, as the medics call it, is often not ‘simple’ but ‘complicated’ for many reasons…

– many of the germs are becoming resistant to drugs, 
– many new and ‘untestable/difficult to test’ germs are entering 
       the picture
– urethritis is a huge set back and becoming more common (not 
        enough drug interface time/opportunity)
– many people don’t get the partner treated and are infected and
        reinfected (yes, even when there are no symptoms)
– many don’t realise that some germs can even cause sterility 
        without symptoms
– many don’t take the full course of treatment and thereby teach
        the germs to fight medication
– any sexual practice you can think of was not introduced by
        Playboy &  Hustler but has been around from the dawn of
        time, there are just more of us so we contact each other more 
        frequently to mass effect….luckily, like most animals, we
        tend to prefer our own species but  poor dental and 
        sexual hygiene is a huge problem.

Let me be specific about dental/sexual hygiene. You cannot just jump up and have sex anymore, you must wash, pull back and wash out foreskins/remove foreskins altogether as babies (germs hide there), fix/pull bad teeth, brush, floss, gargle and don’t drool for oral sex, enema for anal sex…YES with your long-time faithful partner too and don’t even think of experimental type sex like this  with acquaintances!  You’d be nuts!  Here we’re dealing with very hardy, heavy duty germs of the alimentary tract, mouth to anus.   These things are like your greatest sci-fi spies, merciless super adapters with cloaking devices, except they’re right here on Earth and they love a new home and little nooks they can hide in that drugs find it hard to get to, like long urethras and fallopian tubes and very easily, and usually sadly symptomatically, women’s vaginas and short urethras.  I defy any doctor to say it is a simple matter to clean out an infected urethra!  Prostates, testes, ovaries and kidneys are becoming infected at alarming rates.  Then there is the ageing population, diabetes and all manner or other immunocompromise including poor diet.  Think chronic kidney failure. 

The WHO now has a ‘syndromic protocol’, a German term tranlates as a ‘horse cure’, or basically an elephant gun to kill an elephant masquerading as an ‘ant’ so to speak.  This approach takes into account the fact that genito-urinary tract infections are getting harder and harder to test and treat and they ‘go hunting in pairs’ (often packs and parties) so up to 4 drugs get prescribed and they go into more than one orifice in the female case.  This blasts the good, the bad and the ugly…you have to shore up your system with nutritional supplements during such an onslaught.  Yes, there are alternative and natural treatments which I use frequently but when the monster has to be dealth with hard and fast because of pain/fever/sterility you have to go for it and mop up with naturals long term AND USE CONDOMS.

So what of these?  Latex and vinyl for men in all sizes. One size vinyl for women (Never heard of this? Well you have now…you’ll get the picture below) I really don’t care what kind you men use – large, small, coloured, ribbed, winged (just kidding), latex, vinyl etc. etc….just use one!!!!  ALL THE TIME,  UNLESS YOU’RE ATTEMPTING TO IMPREGNATE, YOUR FORESKIN IS A PROBLEM (BE BRAVE & REMOVE IT), YOU HAVE SOME OTHER EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD EXCUSE.  Please, ‘It doesn’t feel good, God never intended us to use them, they are designed to kill off Black Man,
it’s too much trouble, etc., etc., won’t cut it!

If men choose vinyl it’s for allergy reasons and/or a less tight fit with a more natural feel, drawback being – less secure on pull out.  Women’s ones are more expensive, may look strange at first – there’s a ring hanging just outside the vagina that the man enters BUT THEY ALLOW MORE OF A FEEL OF THE NATURAL WOMAN than the male condom. 

The thing is to teach your sons to use a condom at first sex so it’s a natural act and feel for them …and ever after till children are the goal…he and his partner will thank you forever.  Females suffer most, they’ve got more internal surface area to infect and a short runway up to this maze of brilliant engineering.  Don’t let them have to beg, fight, endure verbal abuse to have the right to safe, happy sex.  Thank you for listening.

Men & Marriage/Civil Union

Gentlemen, are you getting married/united or thinking about it…?  Might I suggest that if you have never had the literal thought (or some version of it) “I want to spend the rest of my life with this person/I don’t want to live without this person/I cannot not be with this person”,  to paraphrase Fagin, “I think you better think it out again!”  Not saying you shouldn’t continue a relationship, just nothing sanctioned by church/law. 

I would say it’s fairly well known in counselling of couples that if the male entity…not necessarily the female entity…does not think like this; it is a statistically high indicator that rough times will sunder the union.  You know very well nature hates a vacuum, even in homosexual relationships there is a male/female dynamic.  

And think about this…apart from the ‘politics of the condom’…in ‘developed’ society are we now facing a widespread dilemma regarding whether men prefer a woman who is financially dependent and emotionally independent vs. one who is financially independent and one who is emotionally dependent?  Which are you dealing with?  Is it appropriate for you?  Can balance be achieved?

Men, Get Yourself Some Help!

Yes, I’m talking to you men… You were the inspiration for this site because half of you refuse to get yourself mental or physical help…so you can talk to me using your favourite gadget in relative anonymity, ask even ‘dumb’ questions and be a ‘weakling’ if you feel like it; your mother is not the only one who can handle that side of you….OK? Good, your number of excuses is dwindling…strike off ‘no fun’, ‘I don’t want to show my face’, ‘I’ll look like an idiot’, ‘I’ll feel like a sissy’… 

Yes, I know money is always a factor, but enough of you pulled me over at parties, bars and garages and emptied my brain for me to take a hint…because money was not some of ‘you’s’ issue..maybe you just didn’t want to go to any doctor’s office…