Well, it seems that the information I received and shared last Sunday was either without foundation or the reshuffle it suggested was to happen has been reshuffled for another time. Anyway, what is to be will be and only time will tell.
That said and talking about time, the latest time as reported in the news a few days ago is 6:30. For those of you who might be out of the loop for one reason or another, that 6:30 is neither a.m. nor p.m.; nor does it refer to any time as would be indicated by the position of the hands on a clock face.
Rather, this 6:30 that’s making headlines has to do with the position in which many younger women are placing their bodies in order to move to the beat of the latest dancehall hits. It’s called 6:30 because it calls for the body to be fully bent over at the waist to the point where both hands are touching the ground around the feet or clutching the ankles. The dance is also done with a partner fastened on behind.
I do not know why it’s making headlines because, although somebody apparently had the bright idea to brand it the 6:30 recently on realizing it resembled 6:30 a.m. or 6:30 p.m. on their watch, the position is nothing new and has been around for years. I would even bet that it originated in Jamaica around the time that dancehall/dub music and the dancehall queen phenomenon exploded.
I do not understand what pleasure either the female or her male partner gets from doing the 6:30. Maybe it’s that I am now reaching the age where I am starting to lose the ability to feel the feeling.
Nevertheless, while reading about the now-dubbed 6:30, my mind rushed back to days when couples danced facing each other whether they were waltzing or getting down to some serious wuk-up to the latest calypso.
It was the memory of those slow sessions in places like After Dark that really lit up in my memory and it occurred to me that although it was referred to as grinding back in the day, somebody with the quick wittedness of the person who came up with 6:30 would have named the position involved the 6 o’clock.
It was a position of being erect with male and female locked up in each other and morphed into a single body with little or no movement, except below the waistline.
This column would probably be condemned X-rated if I dared to go on to describe that movement and the feelings and sensations it provided for both partners, where it was quite common for a couple to be still locked up in a 6 o’clock on the same spot where they started long after a tune had ended.
But in my graying years, the memory is now sweeter than the dance. So as long as I am able, I will keep my knees flexible and my legs strong by “guh-ing” down, not stopping down there, and coming up to the commands of Li’l Rick.