Hello, my name is Alex Cloutier and I am a lindy hopper. I have been dancing almost four years. For most of the time I’ve been dancing, I’ve also been teaching locally, traveling, and competing (with varying success). I’ve talked about it a lot with people I admire as well as with people who may very well admire me. I’ve been watching, listening, doing, and thinking.

In addition to being a lindy hopper, I am also a writer, an appreciator of fine menswear, a lover of classic drinks (cocktails, yes, but also their progenitor – punch), a speaker of the most basic and laughable German, a Texan, a world traveler, and a general all-around renaissance fellow. Amazing, you say? God-like? Please, please, no. I am just a man. A great man, perhaps, but I digress. On to business.

The purpose of this blog will be to serve as a means for me to try to wrestle my fierce and mercurial thoughts about lindy hop into something resembling real knowledge and opinions. I’ve read several blogs lately that attempt to educate and guide, and sometimes come off sounding like a self-help book. That’s well and good and it’s some people’s bag. It’s not mine, however, and as far as I can control my more pedantic impulses, this blog will avoid preaching. There may be times that I am moved by such love for the community that I feel duty-bound to try to open its eyes to what I consider the truth, but if there’s any grace in the world those times will be infrequent. And awesome. No, dear reader (how close we’ve become already!), this blog is a place to explore and to discuss. I’m at least as interested in learning what other people think as I am in pinning down what I think. Many of my entries will end with a question. Won’t that be pleasant?

I will also try to keep the parenthetical statements to a minimum.

Love,

Alex