One-Minute Dance

My freshman year at college was a tumultuous one. I wasn’t having torrid love affairs or losing big money on risky investments (who knew inflatable furniture would be a bust?). I was just an emotional wreck. But there were a few things that helped me survive: baked potatoes, good friends, strawberry milk, multiple dates with a boy who was always looking for my never-home roommate—just to name a very few. And then there was the one-minute dance.



You probably don’t yet grasp the radness that is the OMD, and you won’t until you try it. The name is deceiving; it’s a dance all right, but it’s not just one minute in length, it can go for as long as you want. OMD can be done alone, with a partner, or (provided you have enough room and padded walls) with a group. While you may be dancing in the same room with someone, you’re not dancing with them.

It has a few seemingly ordinary components that come together to create unadulterated magic:

First: Find a room that has a lot of open space, or at least is a room that you know well enough to have a good sense of where everything is.

Second: Find some sweet tunes with a phat beat, like this, and put them on the stereo. Turn up said tunes.

Third: Turn off all of the lights.

Fourth: Dance like nobody’s watching—because they aren’t; you turned off the lights in step 3.

The third step is really the most crucial. It’s so powerful because with one flip of a switch, any self-doubt about your ability to break it down is gone. This is an ideal time to try out your c-walk or whip out your Shakira -inspired moves, circa 2006.

I have very fond memories of OMDing. One time my friend, Kate, and I danced for 30 minutes straight. We were stressed out and just trying to stay afloat. There is a camaraderie that comes with doing the one-minute dance: you can’t see the other person, but you know they’re there, probably doing some funkified verison of the Macarena, which makes you feel pretty good about your attempted crunking.