The Breath of Balboa: A Dancer's Revelation

The chipped Formica of the diner booth felt cold under my elbows. Rain lashed against the window, mirroring the tempest brewing inside me. Not a romantic tempest, mind you. More like the kind that rises when you’ve spent three days trying to untangle a particularly knotty Balboa sequence, only to realize the problem isn’t your feet, it’s…the air. The damn air.

See, I’d been obsessing over a particular line in Frankie Manning’s choreography – a subtle shift of weight, a momentary hesitation before a quick charleston step. It felt…wrong. Forced. Like trying to speak a language with a mouthful of gravel. I’d broken it down, slowed it down, drilled it until my legs screamed. Nothing.

Then, late one night, fueled by lukewarm coffee and a desperate need for something to click, I stumbled onto a Lester Young recording. Not one of the obvious, swinging anthems. No, this was “Lester Leaps In,” the 1939 recording with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. And it wasn’t the melody, or even the harmonic complexity (though Lord, that’s a conversation for another night). It was his breath.

Young’s tenor saxophone doesn’t just play notes, it inhales them. He draws the sound in, holds it, then releases it with a languid, almost conversational quality. It’s not about brute force, it’s about space. Negative space. The silence between the notes is as crucial as the notes themselves. It’s a breath that feels…vulnerable. Like he’s sharing a secret, a confession whispered in a smoky room.

And suddenly, it hit me. My Balboa was suffocating. I was pushing the movement, trying to make it happen, instead of letting it flow through me. I was filling every millisecond with action, leaving no room for the breath, for the subtle pauses that give the dance its elasticity, its soul.

This isn’t some airy-fairy, “feel the music” nonsense, though God knows I’m prone to that. This is about physics, about momentum, about the fundamental principle of action and reaction. Balboa, at its core, is a conversation. A call and response. A delicate negotiation of weight and energy. And you can’t have a conversation if you’re constantly talking. You need to listen. You need to breathe.

Young understood this intuitively. He wasn’t just playing the saxophone; he was responding to the other musicians, to the rhythm, to the very air in the room. His phrasing wasn’t about showing off technical prowess (though he had plenty); it was about creating a dialogue. A dance, if you will.

Think about it. The best Balboa dancers aren’t the ones who can execute the most complicated patterns. They’re the ones who can anticipate their partner’s movements, who can react to the slightest shift in weight, who can create a sense of effortless connection. They’re the ones who understand the importance of the pause, the hesitation, the subtle breath that allows the energy to build and release.

I started practicing again, but this time, I wasn’t focused on the steps. I was focused on my breath. I imagined Young’s tenor saxophone filling the room, and I tried to mimic his phrasing with my body. Inhale. Pause. Release.

I slowed down the tempo, stripped away the unnecessary flourishes, and focused on the fundamental connection with my partner. I let the music guide me, instead of trying to impose my will upon it. And slowly, painstakingly, the line began to unlock. The hesitation wasn’t a mistake; it was a punctuation mark. The weight shift wasn’t forced; it was a natural consequence of the rhythm.

It wasn’t about doing Balboa; it was about being in the music. About surrendering to the groove, about allowing the energy to flow through me, about breathing with Lester Young.

This isn’t limited to Balboa, of course. It applies to Lindy Hop, to Charleston, to any jazz dance that demands a genuine connection to the music. And it applies to listening to jazz, period. How many times have we, as listeners, become fixated on the virtuosity of a soloist, on the complexity of a chord progression, and forgotten to simply listen? To breathe with the music? To allow it to wash over us, to penetrate our defenses, to reveal its secrets?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of “ghosts” in music. Not literal ghosts, of course, but the echoes of past masters, the subtle influences that shape our understanding of the art form. Young’s breath, for me, is one of those ghosts. It’s a reminder that jazz isn’t just about notes and rhythms; it’s about feeling, about vulnerability, about the spaces between things.

So, the next time you’re struggling with a dance move, or feeling disconnected from the music, try this: put on some Lester Young. Close your eyes. And listen to his breath. Let it fill your lungs, your limbs, your soul. And then, go dance.

Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find the ghost in the groove. And maybe, just maybe, it will change everything. Because sometimes, the most profound lessons aren’t found in the textbooks or the instruction manuals. They’re found in the spaces between the notes, in the breath of a master, in the quiet desperation of a rainy night, and the chipped Formica of a diner booth. And that, my friends, is a truth worth sweating for.