Is grinding really dancing?

singcheer211:

I really don’t think so. Why do you insist that it is? It really isn’t.

Me neither.

Never Too Early to Stop Some Kids Freak Dancing (and to Tell Them Why It’s Bad)

Grinding is so easy to do, that even kids as young as five do this.

Well, I helped Muetti’s friend stop her son (he was 8 or 10, I believe) from dancing something pretty similar to freak dancing but with some space, in front of his girl friends, who were younger than him, after a recent Sunday Mass. His mother spanked him with a rolled up bulletin from my Catholic church and said that it was inappropriate. His father says he should cut down on the cartoons.

I helped further by pulling him over and told him the same thing. He claimed that it was Tom and Jerry (the cartoons), but I believe it was more than that. I think he saw something on home video, Internet video-sharing site, or television that involved live-action (non-animated) people doing what he did, but against their partner’s crotch or butt.

Then, I went into the car of one of Muetti’s friends, and I told the kids about the boy’s dancing. I told them that high schoolers do it in dances, despite the rules, and how even middle and elementary schoolers do it too. I told them this dancing rule: face-to-face with some space. He might have not agreed with me, but with persuasion, he can learn the right and wrong ways to dance throughout life.

My heroic (or pretty heroic) advocacy towards kids young as 3 about grinding came to show that 3 years old is never too young to learn that the social dance is inappropriate. I hope my story can spur parents, teachers, and others to have their kids use common sense when dancing.

Can Ballroom Dancing Stop Anyone from Freak Dancing?

Grinding was once the dance at dance clubs, but thanks to music videos it became popular with teenagers. The moves are so easy to do that even a preschooler can learn them. Of course, parents, teachers, and other concerned people are fed up with it because it simulates sexual intercourse.

There are solutions to discourage freak dancing. One extreme measure is to cancel future dances when students continue to dance dirtily at one. Another sensible way is to have them wear wristbands to be cut off when they dance inappropriately or to have them sign a contract.

Another way is to hire a live band because they are less likely to play music suitable for the way they dance (in a sexual manner, of course). In the non-school field, those who invite guests at dance parties or receptions involving that activity write along the lines of “no grinding” in their invitations.

But there’s another solution some schools and other organizers consider to discourage anyone from grinding: ballroom dancing and cotillions.

Pros

There are benefits to learning ballroom dancing, besides the fact that it burns calories. For the main part, it teaches people the proper way to dance. You really can’t sway your hips behind your partner who’s doing so likewise when a Strauss waltz plays. You have to learn how to dance to it.

Also, you learn basic dance etiquette. While eager students get on the dance floor and start to grind along to recent hits that fit the dance, students learn to ask their partners on the dance floor. That gives them more confidence to dance with the opposite sexes.

Best of all, that method of social dancing allows them to meet new friends as well as the old. The best way to do so is to form cotillions. They are programs designed for people to properly dance, boost their self-confidence, and meet each other.

I for one have danced in a cotillion as a teen, and I loved it so much that I wished all dances with formal wear (school-sponsored or not) can do it. The dance featured in mine was the waltz, but others can include salsa, tango, and foxtrot as well.

Well, at least it’s not grinding.

Cons

Ballroom dancing has its flaws. Instructors are really hard to come by, and lessons can be very expensive. A great way to pare down on costs is to find a friend or volunteer someone to help participants learn the steps. Schools would love to recruit their students who are really good at it, but sometimes they prefer bump-and-grind over dancing mambo.

Also, the music for that type of dancing with friends is lame. Although DJs crank out tunes for it as well, bands big and small (especially big bands with 12-15 wind instruments and small classical-style orchestras) take advantage of it. (Remember that they play mostly lame music, which can turn off teens.) Something in the likes of Wine, Woman, and Song (a Strauss Waltz) can anger those who embrace “sexual bending” or dancing with little space front-to-back.

Speaking of not being able to grind and being told to dance like “their great-grandparents,” participants feel as if organizers are plunging them back to the Regency Era. (Well, that’s when cotillions were at their heights, anyway!) Dressing in semi-formal to formal clothing (tuxedos, gowns, etc.) is not a problem especially for teens participating in homecomings, proms, and the like.

But what if organizers force them to learn the dances and have them wear cravats, knee-breeches, empire-waist dresses, and petticoats? What if they make students learn reels, waltzes, and other group dances at the time? They would deem the measure as “too stuffy.”

Teen Who Loves Grinding: Wow - that’s like, totally laaaaaaaaaaammmmme.
School Administrator: No it’s not - it’s the proper way to dance!

Some of the dancing at ballrooms is just as bad as freak dancing. Take a gander at the ballroom dancing on television, for instance. There are too much closed positions in the sauciest of salsas and rumbas, as well as a minimal amount of grinding (but not in a way that’s too common). Fortunately, most classes offer family-friendly versions of them.

In fact, most dances started out as being thorny to society. For instance, Catholics and other moralists bashed the waltz during the Regency Era, but that didn’t stop there. In 2007, the education ministry in China urged schools to implement the waltz in their curriculums to combat childhood obesity.

Some teachers, parents, and critics decried it because the closed positions encourage premature infatuation. (That means that dancing it would incite “puppy love.”) Simply put, they had the same views as the moralists did in the early 1800’s. Thus, a handful of schools opted out of the program.

Despite being so lame to dance party participants as well as expensive, ballroom dancing can be a boon to everyone. But there are questions organizers need to consider when they hold a party with at least a third of the dances in the genre. Is it feasible and appealing for the target audience? What are the costs for a good instructor? How would the guests react to the measure?

On top of that, does ballroom dancing work – just for the sake of clean dancing?

Grinding, Freak Dancing are Reasons Why Most People Homeschool

There are numerous reasons why parents prefer homeschooling to any other method of schooling. By having kids under this intimate education system, you protect them from bullies, teasing, and overstimulation that burden them in a regular school. Also, parents save a considerable amount of commute time when they hire a teacher who would help the children learn and succeed, compared to putting them in a bus.

But there’s another reason to homeschool: a lot of the school dances involve a lewd dance called grinding.

So what is grinding, you ask. Also known as “freak dancing,” “twerking,” or “doing the butt,” it’s a very basic yet highly sexual dance. Simply shake your hips behind your partner’s back end and keep a very small distance between yourselves.

It’s often danced to hip-hop and reggaeton, two of the music genres that teens show interest in listening. (For the latter, freaking to the music is called perreo, after the Spanish term for “dog.”) The front-to-back dancing is very common in school dances and others that are meant to be family-friendly.

I had a lot of experiences with the dance. When I was one of the leaders in my Catholic parish’s youth retreat, I grinded because I saw a lot of my peers do it. That’s an example of peer pressure because I knew right that instant that everyone was doing it and the movements were so easy to learn.

The same peer pressure held true with homecoming in my senior year – almost all my friends on the dance floor formed pairs or “grind trains” and I joined in. I soon realized how lewd the majority and I danced was very inappropriate and vowed myself that it was the last time I grinded.

Contrast the public school life with homeschooling – it eliminates all the peer pressure in everything, including dancing. The only person the pupil has to deal with is the teacher or the parent who is teaching. Also, it shields them from outside influence, namely the results of media oversexualization. No, I’m not just counting the skimpy clothes that preteens, teens, and other women wear, but also the way kids dance.

You may wonder whatever happened to the waltz (Believe me, it was criticized for being too scandalous a few times, particularly in the early 1800’s and in 2007.) or other “clean dances.” Sadly, most teens who think that freak dancing is the only known method of dancing renounced those dances they danced as children.

Speaking of children, grinding is a too-easy party dance. In a few home videos taped in a nation where reggaeton became popular, several elementary school-aged children freak danced. In one of them, some girls held on to the wall and straddled one leg around their partners as they grinded. Having seen these videos, I blame media influence as well as poor real-life role models (especially teenage siblings or parents) for influencing children to dance provocatively.

School dances that involve teenage bum-on-pelvis dancing are one good reason to homeschool. No child should ever learn how to dance dirtily as his or her own peers. With that program, a child can learn how to dance properly, and some teachers are able to teach them ballroom dancing of any genre. Of course, there’s a slim chance that a child would bump and grind when he gets his schooling at home!

How to Discourage Anyone from Grinding

We parents, teachers, and some concerned others are fed up with a dance that numerous teenagers and some adults do in dance parties, school dances, wedding receptions, and other events that involve dancing: grinding. To perform the social dance to basic way, you either gyrate your hips behind a shaking butt or the other way around, with as little space as possible. That move is the shocking character of the dance.

It’s so easy that even preschoolers can do it.

Well, here are some tips to stop the provocative dancing, whether you are a parent, a teacher, or a prude aunt:

• Lay Down the Rules
  If you are planning a wedding or a dance party, ask the DJ or live band to set down the rules before anyone starts dancing. Better yet, write something in the lines of, “No ‘grinding’ or sexually suggestive dancing please,” on your wedding invitations. If you are a school administrator, ask the organizers to write rules somewhere on participants’ permission slips or tickets. Or have the sellers hand them out along with their tickets. 
• Reduce the Amount of Television they Watch
  This move is not only for the sake of having them live active, healthy lives. A lot of teenagers (and children) watch music videos, concerts, and shows where freak dancing is the norm. Offer them good alternatives to the media they watch. Do you live in a Christian household? Have them watch Christian programming made for teens.
• Teach them Proper Dancing
  One way to teach frequent grinders and those who don’t know how to dance alike how to dance properly is to enroll them into expensive ballroom dancing lessons under well-trained teachers. Of course, there are better, cheaper ways. If you are teachers, one way to encourage school and family-friendly dancing is group dancing. No, I don’t mean that you should plunge them all in the Regency Era (1790-1830) and teach them cotillions. (If you want a prom or homecoming in that theme where you encourage students to dress in that manner, that’s fine.) Have them learn fun dances you did generations ago, like the Chicken Dance, the Hokey Pokey, and even the Macarena. If you are a parent, you should do so likewise to your children. Are you good at ballroom dancing? Don’t be afraid to teach them, too.
• Offer Consequences
  Especially for those of you who are teachers, an effective way to put your foot down on grind dancing is to have them wear wristbands. If they are caught dancing in that manner, mark theirs with a marker for their first warning. Do the same on the second and third offenses. By the time they reach the latter, ask them to leave the dance. It’s simple as that.

You don’t have to make your next prom into a stuffy one that involves Regency Era attire and dancing lessons that are mandatory to students given beforehand! Just teach them to shake their groove thing in a proper way!

There’s no need to ban whole future dances outright because a majority of participants did a lot of dirty dancing on the previous one. Ditto for planning a wedding reception without dancing because you saw a lot of guests dance provocatively in the previous one you attended. Discouraging anyone from dancing in a family-unfriendly manner is not all about teaching them dance lessons. Simply put, keeping them from doing it is a matter of teaching them common sense.

Hopeful for a Grind-Free Disney Day

I’m going to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in less than two weeks. No, I’m not talking about the dandy parade, the candy collecting, and the fireworks that make you scream for more.

I’m talking about the dance parties!

I know what you are thinking - the Magic Kingdom is the place where  you can cut loose and grind like there’s no tomorrow! Well, it’s not the place to start a grinding line because it’s meant for everyone from 1 to 100! I hope that all the spots where people dance are free of all the freak dancing.

Here’s to a grind-free Walt Disney World!