Get ready for the Obama Hustle

Published 9:55 pm Tuesday, November 11, 2008

That time of year is approaching where holiday dances sponsored by sororities, fraternities and associations will be many in number.

Therefore, I’m calling attention to all step dancers to let them know that Slide and Glide and our step dance instructor have learned a brand new dance called the Obama Hustle.

This is a good way to continue celebrating President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory while strengthening your heart and loosening up your limbs in return.

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As many of you know, the Slide and Glide team comprises Gail Hinton-Copeland and me. Our instructor is my son, Mark Wall, who goes on the Internet to find various step dances, e-mails them to Copeland for her to review and then teaches them to us.

After Copeland and I learn them, we teach them to other groups during their annual conferences or upon request at Slide and Glide Workshops.

The Obama Hustle was put together four months ago by Crystal Smith from Detroit, Mich. Smith, 48, acknowledged in a recent newspaper article that creating this dance is one of the ways to show our love and support for Obama. College and university bands are already performing the dance during their halftime shows.

Smith is a longtime teacher of the Hustle dances popularized in the 1970s during the height of the disco era. A friend of hers who volunteered with the Obama campaign suggested that she create a dance to Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” which played constantly at Obama’s campaign stops.

To create the dance Smith pulled steps from the 300 hustles she knows and borrowed from the Temptations’ famous walk to create a string of 26 moves.

Now that Gail, Mark and I have the Obama Hustle down pat, we will be demonstrating it together Nov. 22 at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Norfolk for the Norfolk Chapter of Les Gemmes Inc. Denim and Diamond Celebration.

Moves are basic enough for beginners and senior citizens. A senior citizen group on the YouTube Video narrated by Darlene Steward calls the dance “Seniors Moving for Obama.”

If you have a computer, you can learn the dance from your own residence in your own time, because an instructor is also shown giving you step-by-step instructions. Just visit www.freep.com.

In addition, if you see the three of us at an event doing the Obama Hustle, we will be glad to show you the steps. As one dancer said, this dance seems to unify people on the dance floor the way Obama has unified people nationwide.