So what is the deal with the spinners? It must be fun because I've seen a lot of people do it over the years. I tried it a couple of times, but it wasn't much fun.

Is it a female only thing? Do I need a long skirt to twirl to make it flow?


I am obviously missing something.

What's the deal??

I've been spinning since 1989 . and a guy

It depends on what you are into. But for me it's very meditative, you can start to see the music in a phyisical since and sometimes you get so into it that you can almost feel like you can affect the music.

I've posted about spinning before- a scholar named Eliade Mirceade argued that, ulike today's judeo-christian god(s)- the gods back then had to do something to create. It wasn't simply "willing it". So what did they do to create? Dance and beat a drum. Eliade argued very clearly that when humans dance in a sacred settting, they were recreating the act of god's creatoin. It is an almost universal, archetypal pattern we see across the planet. A clear example can be seen in the sacred drum rites of Japan (those big drums and the funky dance they do). Also, the dances of indonesia have a dane I believe that is part of the act of creation.

So I often think during the moment that I can feel a new layer of consciousness. Throw in some acid... it's great stuff

i wouldn't say i spin, i am obviously missing something as well, but at times the music jumps into me and im off! Can't control it dancing somehow turning occasionally maybe i do get it?? not sure

derek92 wrote:


Go home and give it a try. Just spin to the music.

The problem is, once you do it for about 10 minutes, you will be stuck in going into the spin as part of your moves. And the only place to do that is out in back or in the hall way, where there's enough space.

Dark, the guy with the great website about playing dead music, has a youtube clip about spinners: most popular music is in 4/4. 4/4 is easy to dance to, it's simple straightforward and a predictable beat. But dead songs like the eleven, playing, the raggae tunes, parts of (or all of) sugar mags, a lot of the jams the dead have, they are in odd time signature. Difficult to dance using typical pop fluff. So since the dead were a dancing band, the deadheads came up with their own grooves for the odd time signatures and that evovledi nto spinning, I think

Spinning seems to be a way to seperate yourself, or "lose yourself", in a ritualistic way. Spinning is the first attempt at an altered
reality that most of us experience. Those playground rides, designed to spin you around quickly, causing you to lose your balance.
Or rolling downhill in an attempt to disorient ourselves. Psychologists see this as proof that the intelligent mind naturaly seeks an
altered state. It's born out of a sense of curiousity. And allows us to connect more completely with the music.

You could start by studying the Sufis. Its a good start to understanding the mystic dervishes, a good start...certainly not the whole history or the whole Now.

We can talk more later, if you want to draw on my expertise.

Im a Guy and am a Pround Spinner at every show. In chicago this last november tour at the uic Pavillion is when i first started and ive been doin it ever since. Its really cool because ever since i started doing it. I always see the same people at all the shows when im spinning in the halls. Lots of room and the heads usually always move to the back of the arena and shake down.

PMoondancer wrote:


I think what seperates us from them though is apollonian versus dionysian (borrowing from Neitzche's birth of tragedy). The Dervs primary focus is apollonian (god of reason). Everything they do has a very specific purpose and a very specific goal. It is very orchestrated, like classical music. We deadheads take the dionysian- dionysos was the god of the harvest, and wine. We loose ourselves in an orgiastic intoxicated ritual (one that has existed for 1,000s of years) and through it, communicate with god, however or whatever that means to the individual. It is chaotic in it's very nature but that chaos has it's own beauty. Likewise, the dervs' dance has it's own beauty in the apollonian.

While the dervs would be appalled at the Grateful Dead experience, I like to think it's just two different roads leadings... yup you guessed it... to Terrapin

I'm an avowed chicken dancer, with the patented head bob. I drink too much beer to be a spinner without risking some serious repercussions.