MYSTERY OF THE TEXAS TWOSTEP

CHAPTER SEVENTY seven:

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Written by Rick Archer 

limbo month thirteen
JULY 1980

CHAOS AND THE GREAT CON JOB

Urban Cowboy created a stampede.  Following the movie premiere in June, Houston's western clubs saw their dance floors mobbed.  The dance floors had been busy prior to the premiere, but nothing like this.  The floors were so crowded the dancers could only creep along at a snail's pace.  Not just that, half the people on the floor had no idea what they were doing.  Imagine a bumper-to-bumper freeway where half the drivers lacked a license.   For a while there, the Old-Style dancers and the New-Style dancers had something in common... they both disliked the Newcomers because there was no room to dance.  Given the level of hostility directed at the Newcomers, this was a recipe for disaster.  No one got hurt, but the antagonism created a lot of bruised feelings. 

Why were there so many untrained dancers out there?  Because there was no one to train them.  Okay, there were a few Western teachers in addition to me.  However, there were nowhere near enough of us to handle this riot.  The problem was exacerbated by the simplicity of the Old-Style Twostep.  It does not take much skill to push a girl backwards all night long.  As long as the Newcomers stuck to the Prairie Twostep, that was all it took to get out there.

However, even by sticking to the most primitive form of Twostep, collisions were inevitable due to the crowding.  This legion of new dancers had no idea what they were doing.  In short order, the newcomers ruined everything for those who could dance.  With the dance floors packed wall to wall, gridlock was inevitable.  Old-Style and New-Style dancers watched in horror as their playgrounds were sabotaged by a bunch of idiots.

The fact that everyone was forced to dance in place probably saved lives.  Otherwise the bad dancers might have broken someone's neck.  People shuffled around the floor at inches per minute.  Houston was famous for clogging the freeways whenever a hurricane threatened, but Country-Western dance floors were even worse.  People were getting frustrated.  And angry.  There were crashes, even pile-ups.  There were arguments.  There were insults and ugly words.  All I could do was shake my head in wonderment. 

"Good grief, Houston's dance floors have become a War Zone!"

I blamed this preposterous situation on the mysterious Wizard of Oz.  This unanticipated pandemonium was totally his fault.  The Wizard's movie had portrayed my Hometown as this amazing Western dance paradise.  Now come to find nobody in Houston knew a damn thing about Western dancing.  A nasty surprise indeed.

Spurred on by the Wizard's hype, the problem was aided and abetted by gushing TV personalities who plugged Urban Cowboy at every turn.  And it worked!  The endless hype led everyone to believe Western dancing was popular in the Houston area.  We all assumed lots of people knew how to Western dance.  Imagine the embarrassment when the entire city realized nothing could be further from the truth.  Houston had ZERO Western dance tradition.  Hollywood had played a giant practical joke on Space City.

Here is my take.  Clay Felker, the marketing genius behind all these changes, was desperately plugging the Sequel angle.  He knew the best way to guarantee the movie's success was to claim that John Travolta was going to do the same thing for Western dancing that he had done for Disco dancing.  FOR A YEAR AND A HALF, Houstonians were told that Western Dancing was going to be bigger than Disco.  As proof of the coming phenomenon, 30 Western clubs popped up out of nowhere to reinforce the prediction. 

Word on the street: WESTERN DANCING IS THE NEXT BIG THING IN HOUSTON!!

It was the Con Job of the Century.  Thanks to all the Travolta hype, Houston citizens had been fooled into thinking we deserved credit for something that did not exist.  In other words, we had no business receiving applause.  Pasadena, maybe, but no one in Houston knew a thing about C&W Dance.  The whole thing was a giant Cosmic Joke. 

My guess is maybe 1% of Houston's population had ever danced Western in their life.  And that might be an overstatement.  A lot of people liked Country music, but there was no existing dance tradition inside the city limits.  Since there was no interest, there were no western dance teachers and no western dance studios.  High school dances played Disco and Motown.  Houston singles went Disco dancing.  There was no 'dislike' of Western dancing, more like no one cared.  Most citizens had no idea Western dancing even existed until suddenly the hype said otherwise.   

When I say that Houston was blindsided by the Western avalanche, I am completely serious.  With all these rookies Two-Stepping without a driver's license, my friends asked why this gridlock had not happened before the movie came out.  I replied that increasing numbers had been visiting the Western clubs before the Debut.  However, the floors were only at 70% capacity, so there was room to dance.  No one wants to be laughed at, so the Beginners held back till they knew what they were doing.  Some of them decided to take lessons.  The others sipped their beers and watched the experienced dancers show them how it was done.  In other words, the floors had been empty enough to allow the first stage of the evolution process to develop.

However, once the movie arrived, there was such a huge crowd on the floor that incompetent Newcomers could hide with impunity.  Plus the movie had ratcheted up peer pressure.   Urban Cowboy had promised America that Western dancing was wildly popular in Houston.  Civic Duty demanded we prove it.  The hoopla was so intense that everyone felt an urgency to see what the fuss was about.

Get out there and dance!  If someone was curious enough to visit a bar, sooner or later someone was going to insist they give it a try.  Hmm.  It doesn't look that hard.  A couple beers for courage and a clueless beginner was ready to give it a try.  Everyone was certain of one thing... we were all supposed to go a Western club and show Texas Pride.  And so every floor in the city was mobbed with people who did not know what they were doing.  The problem was not exclusive to Cowboy.  All the clubs had the same problem.  Overnight the floors turned into Bumper Car Calamity.  The results were predictable.  A mob of unruly people pushed, fell, tripped, stumbled, lost their temper, behaved rudely.  There was so much animosity released by the collisions that it threatened to destroy the fun of Western dancing, the very thing we were supposed to be celebrating.  No one could have ever have imagined this. 

As my friend Bob put it, "Urban Cowboy should be renamed Urban Chaos."

With good reason, people who loved Western dancing were furious.  At the exact moment the experienced dancers expected to have fun, these stupid city slickers showed up to rain on their parade.  This Bumper to Bumper situation is what created the 'Country before Country was Cool' backlash.  Due to the obscurity of C&W dancing in Houston, for years the Original Western dancers had enjoyed complete freedom to pursue their hobby in peace.  Now their day in the sun was ruined by this frustrating crawl.

Many blamed the influx of ex-Disco dancers for the problem.  However, they were wrong.  There weren't that many of us.  Since most Disco dancers despised the music and found the dancing beyond boring, most just quit dancing and moved onto something else.  

So who were all these people clogging up the floors?  I contend the problem was caused by countless people who had never danced before.  I had always wondered why the Houston Rodeo was such a big hit.  It turns out Houston had a GIANT subculture that loved Western music.  However, these same people had never cared or bothered to learn how to dance to it... until now. 

These were not the blue collar cowboys of Gilley's, but rather affluent Houston professionals who identified strongly with the Country image and lifestyle.  They liked the music, they liked the Rodeo, they drove a truck, they wore a cowboy hat, they liked Western movies, John Wayne was their hero, they owned a gun, they liked to hunt, they talked Texan, and they wore cowboy boots. 

However, they couldn't dance a lick because they were raised in the city! 

Just because a Houston man wore boots and listened to Country music did not mean he could dance to it.  But now was the time to try.  For the first time Houston history, 'Dancing' had been added to the definition of what it meant to be an 'Urban Cowboy'.

When the movie hit, I would guess half the people on the dance floors were dancing Western for the first time in their lives.  That included a lot of people who drove pickup trucks with their radio dial set to KIKK-FM.  Every day for the past year Houston's affluent Bubba population had driven to work listening to a radio DJ promising that Urban Cowboy would do the same thing for Kicker Dancing that Saturday Night Fever did for Disco.  Over time, the subliminal message did the trick.  Kicker Nation was hypnotized into the belief that Western Dancing was in their future.  Due to all the hype, the movie created pressure on every Country Music lover inside Houston's city limits to dance for the very first time.  And so they responded to the Call of the Wild.  The mass migration to the dance floor spelled disaster.  These dance virgins were in for a rude surprise.  This is when the Urban Chaos kicked in. 

Sorry, guys, you're a year late.  In the good old days, country dancing, aka Girls Dance Backwards, could be learned on the fly.  Not any more.  Now guys were supposed to go backwards too, maybe even attempt a one-arm turn.  Indeed, pre-movie interest in Western dancing was so strong that the dancing had dramatically improved BEFORE the Debut.  Strange as it might seem, here in Houston, Travolta's dancing was already obsolete by the time the movie hit the theaters.  That led to some very strange reactions.  People would watch Travolta plod around on the movie screen, then think to themselves, "Gosh, I can dance better than that!"

Prior to the Big Debut, there were two types of western clubs in Houston:  Upscale places like Cowboy that catered to well-heeled professionals.  Then there were less fancy places that played Outlaw Country and catered to blue collar types.  The music was different and so was the dancing.  The Old-Style Twostep dominated at the blue collar joints while the New-Style Twostep that I taught dominated at Cowboy.

So who suffered the most embarrassment?  Houston professionals, mostly the men.  Why?  The blue collar clubs had not upgraded the quality of the dancing, so any beginner could fit right in.  Not so at the upscale clubs frequented by the businessmen.  Now that the quality of the dancing at Cowboy, Rodeo, and other Fake Cowboy bars had been raised, what was a Newcomer to do?  Some tried to figure it out on their own while others decided maybe dance lessons were a better idea.  The smart ones came to me. 

However, the vast majority tried to figure it out on their own.  Of course they stumbled.  This is when the chaos ensued.  Let's say a guy stepped on his partner's feet.  Or maybe she chewed him out for his inability to lead a move.  Distracted by her obvious displeasure, countless men would stop right in the middle of the floor to argue about it.  That's when the couple coming up from behind would smash right into the slowpokes.  Angry at the people who did not know what they were doing, the hotshots lashed out by 'accidentally' pushing the newcomers in the back or bumping into them.  Others would holler "Watch where you're going!" or "Get out of the way!" 

Take a guess how the newcomers felt about the browbeating.  Tired of getting pushed around and frustrated with their lack of knowledge, the newcomer's tempers were boiling.  The crowded conditions made for inevitable collisions and everyone was getting tense.  There were lots of angry voices, threats, insults, ruffled feathers and wounded feelings.  Only a few actual fists were thrown, but there were a lot of close calls.  Fortunately there were women around to bring the hot heads back to their senses.  In fact, the intervention of the women would set the stage for a surprising development.  

JULY 1980

THE EVOLUTION PROCESS, STAGE THREE
 

For most people in Houston, Country-Western dancing was brand new and exciting. 

Back in the days of cattle roaming the vast Texas prairie, Country Dancing originated as a way for lonely cowboys to meet women at faraway Saturday night Barn Dances.  However, here in the big city, women were no longer 30 miles away by horse.  We had cars now and plenty of women to choose from who lived nearby.  'Dancing' was no longer necessary as a courtship device.  That is why C&W Dancing never made it to the Big City.  If John Travolta had not come to Houston, the Prairie Twostep would have remained the status quo.  Given how boring the dancing was, there simply was not enough interest for anyone to bother making any changes.  I was among those city boys who could care less.  I did not even know Western dancing existed until I was 28.  Neither did my former high school classmates.  It was that way across the city.

However, once the movie began filming in 1979, Western dancing was on people's minds for the first time in Houston history.  In January 1980, the demand for Western dance lessons kicked in.  So here is an interesting question.  How many teachers answered the call of duty in January 1980?  Practically no one.  The Ballroom teachers could have cared less.  The Disco instructors didn't care either.  Most of them had moved on long ago due to the extreme drop-off in demand for Disco lessons.  Besides, how were they supposed to know there would be a sudden demand for Country lessons? 

We already know that Western teachers did not exist prior to 1980 because the dancing was too simple and there was no demand.  However, now that there was demand, people like the graduates of Texas A&M for example could have taught Western.  But how were they going to advertise on short notice when the avalanche hit? 

Crazy as it sounds, thanks to the Meyerland Club opportunity, I was probably the only dance teacher in the city who had prepared in advance.  If there were other instructors out there on Day One, I apologize.  BUT I NEVER HEARD OF ANYONE ELSE!!  That is the truth.  Furthermore, my dance career depended on making this work.  Once I discovered there was not enough material to make a living as things stood, I was forced to innovate.  I relied on Ballroom Foxtrot and German Polka for inspiration on ways to improve the dancing.   I told the men to hold the women around their backs, not their necks.  I insisted that men learn to dance backwards on a frequent basis.  Once I got the ball rolling, I noticed a lot of people preferred this style. Once I got the ball rolling, I noticed a lot of people preferred this style, especially the women.  By the end of January 1980, especially at the Yuppie Country bars like Cowboy and Rodeo, this new style became standard operating procedure. 

So how do I see my role in this?  During the first stage of Western Dance Evolution, I was a copycat.  I got my idea to put my hand on a woman's back from Glen.  I got my idea to ask men to dance backwards from Joanne.  The idea to use Foxtrot moves in Twostep came from Joanne's observation that various Texas Aggies whispered the words 'Slow Slow Quick Quick' whenever she needed help mastering the 'New Twostep'.   

The second step in the Evolution Process was the One-Arm Turns.  I take no credit for this development  However I immediately saw that it was a very good idea.  Historically, Western dancing had always been danced in 'Closed Position'.  Not any more.  Shortly before the movie debut, 'Open Position' and one-arm turns became part of the new style of Western dancing.  My first Advanced Western class in May consisted completely of moves where the woman was free to turn under the man's left arm. 

Who invented these One-Arm Turns?  The credit goes to the ex-Disco dancers who, like me, were dissatisfied with the current state of Western dancing.  I estimate there were somewhere between 500 to 1,000 Disco dancers who switched to Western dancing.  I strongly suspect the women were supremely disappointed.  And what did they did do about it?  They complained to their men. 

"Luke, you better find some way to make this more fun or I quit." 

So the ex-Disco men did the same thing as me... they looked for ways to innovate.  Unfortunately, for a while there, the One-Arm Turns became a thing of the past.  Can you guess why?  Once the floors became grid-locked, a woman risked her life dancing separate from the men.  Either she got knocked down by a clumsy beginner or she got knocked down by a bitter Old Country guy who resented the changes. 

Fortunately, the fad stage passed after a month or so.  Sometime in mid-July the crowds began to ease up.  Now there was room to try the One-Arm innovations again.  Bob and I both noticed that arms around the lady's back and men dancing backwards had become the new standard.  I cannot speak for the Old Country bars, but at Cowboy, Rodeo and Texas, the new country style dominated. 

Bob and I decided to acknowledge the ex-Disco women for the swiftness of the changes.  And how did we know this?  Because they complained to us ALL THE TIME.

Trust me, here in Urban Cowboy Era, if given a choice between riding a mechanical bull or learning to Twostep to prove they were a Real Cowboy, these modern cowboys would have opted for the bull every time.  It's one thing to bust a rib.  That is 'manly'.  It is another thing entirely to have one's pride wounded after stumbling through a Twostep with a girlfriend who shows contempt for his dancing or screams bloody murder as her toes bleed. 

Unfortunately, the majority of men who are professionals are slow learners.  Why is that?  I am going generalize, so take what I say with a grain of salt.   Three reasons.  One is lack of patience.  They want it 'Now' or as soon as possible, so they are quick to turn to dance lessons.  They would rather have someone show them how to do it than suffer through painful trial and error like I once did. 

Second, men who are analytical (as most professionals are) lack the ability to see a move and copy it.   They do much better when someone can break it down and offer suggestions at a pace they are comfortable with.  Three, they're wealthy enough to bite the bullet and pay for the lessons. 

Why do you suppose my TGIS classes were so large?  Because the men were 99% professionals.  Very few 'analytical' men can learn COMPLICATED partner dance patterns without training of some sort.  While the ladies have the luxury of Following, most men need someone to explain it to him. 

Once upon a time, Western dancing was not that tough to learn.  However, during the past six months prior to the Debut, Western dancing had gotten at least somewhat more complicated.  It was no longer effortless to learn just by watching.  Most of these guys were trying to learn by trial and error and not getting very far.  But who was there to ask?  There were no teachers!  Without teachers, who was going to show the average guy what to do?  Now you know why my Western program grew by leaps and bounds over the summer.

Once upon a time a man could insist the woman dance backwards all night long and be grateful.  Now men were dancing backwards on a regular basis.  Now men were leading one-arm turns.  What changed their minds? 

Here is my theory.  Urban Cowboy changed the rules of the game.  Over the past century, Houston men had gotten a free pass whenever a girl suggested her boyfriend or husband take her Western dancing.  Invariably the man would utter the 'I don't know how' or 'I don't like to dance' excuse and the girl would give up without much protest.  Now, however, the popularity of the movie emboldened Houston women to demand their men take them to a Western Club and check out the scene.  Eager to please, unsuspecting men escorted their ladies to the nearest Kicker Club.  Uh oh.  They were trapped!  Once they were on the premises, their girlfriends expected them to try the dancing. 

Thanks to Urban Cowboy, I am convinced countless young men in Houston were being bullied by their women into hitting the dance floor for the first time in their lives.  The girls would not take no for an answer because the movie had made country dancing trendy, or 'Cool' if you prefer.  I had long believed the most powerful forces of nature were the three G's: Gravity, Greed, and Gossip.  Now I had just discovered a fourth power:  Female Persuasion.  Ordinarily a young man would take one look and say forget it.  But these were not ordinary times.  Despite massive reservations, one rookie man after another gamely approached the floor.  Why?  Beer and Women with Promises. 

Beer helped because it gave men false confidence.  But the real reason the men got out there was Female Persuasion, an irresistible force of nature.  Women love to dance and they intuitively sensed the time had come to speak up.  Now that Western dancing had become the new Merit Badge of being Texan, the ladies had more leverage than any other time in Texas history.  Any man who refused to try the Texas Twostep was branded a coward and instantly stripped of his dignity. 

Sometimes I wonder why they call a man's pursuit of women the 'Mating Dance'.  Currently the terms 'Mating Dance' and 'Western Dance' were synonymous.  During Houston's Western Era, Country Dancing emerged as a major courtship ritual.  Pretty girls knew for a fact that a Cowboy would do ANYTHING for love, even if meant trying to dance for the first time in his life.  First the ladies got their men liquored up.  Smart move.  Men will do anything on a dare if you get them drunk enough.  Then came the sweet talk.  A pretty girl with a wink, a smile, and killer curves is hard enough to resist as it is.  However, once she wiggling her finger, the guys are a goner.

"Ah, c'mon, Luke, let's get out on the floor.  Put your arms around me and stop being such a sissy.  Yew can do it; it ain't that hard!  Just look at all those other guys out there.  If they can do it, I bet yew can do it too.  Come on, honey, don't be stubborn.  Just git out there with me.  Don't worry, I'll help you figure it out!"  

"But, Billie Sue, I don't know how!"

"That don't matter, Luke, I'll be happy if you'll just take me out there.  We can fake it a little, watch a little, don't worry, we'll figure it out. C'mon, let dance!"

"Oh, Billie Sue, please don't make me do this!"

"Luke, I gotta question for you.  Do you like to smooch me?  Well, you ain't gonna smooch me any time soon until you improve your attitude."

I imagine these newcomers would have done just fine if the Prairie Twostep was still in effect.  However that style was a thing of the past.   The stakes were higher now.   The women locked arms and spoke in unison: "We prefer the New Style!" 

I suppose a few married guys held out, but the unmarried guys never had a chance.  Darwinian Principles had kicked in.  Country Dancing was no longer an afterthought, here in Houston it had become THE METHOD to find a girlfriend or keep a girlfriend.  It was no longer okay to just to get out there.  To survive in this modern environment, a guy had to know what he was doing.  There was actual competition on the dance floor to see which guys were the best dancers.  Unattached gals wielded tremendous power.  With all these guys to choose from, skill on the dance floor carried a lot of weight.  The men who knew how to dance got the girls, the men who didn't know were left to cry in their beer.  Sometimes life can be very unfair.

I interpreted the Western dance scene through a lens known as 'Survival of the Fittest'.  The key word is 'Adaptation'.  Western dancing had suddenly become a major skill by which a single man could gain a competitive advantage.  Perhaps you think I am teasing, but not so.  I have first-hand knowledge that there are young adults in Houston today whose parents met on a dance floor during the Western Era. 

Ah, the sands of change.  If a trickle of water could create the Grand Canyon, then imagine what a united group of determined women could create.  Oh my God, whose idea was it to let women go forward?  Nor did it stop there.  Men were expected to learn difficult Circle Turns.  Too late to turn back now.  Once a Man walked the plank, it was sink or swim.  Many of them sank.  Chagrined, a lot of them recognized what they were up against and made a pilgrimage to my dance studio. 

This fortuitous development is why my dance studio became famous overnight.  However I was facing a problem.  What would happen to me when the fad ended?