During our recent trip to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Clare and I took shag dancing lessons at Fat Harold’s Beach Club.

Shaggin was born on the beaches of South Carolina and rose in popularity after the second world war as young people returned from the war and found a new outlet and zest for life, stepping and swirling to the boppy beats of beach music. North Myrtle Beach and Fat Harold’s Beach Club became the epicentre for shag.

The dance itself has been called the “swing dance of the south” or a slowed down jitterbug. It’s now the official state dance for North and South Carolina and Myrtle Beach and hosts the national competition every spring.

Lessons are free on Tuesday nights at Fat Harold’s. We pulled into a packed parking lot and sashayed across the dance floor to plant ourselves at a cocktail table at the back of the club on risers. Behind us was a beautiful mural of a sunny day at the beach to get us into the beach music vibe.

Fat Harold’s is “home of the shag” and it felt like we had stepped back fifty years. There was a pool table and burger counter as soon as you walked in (they are known for their cheeseburgers). Inside the main club, a long wooden bar and cocktail tables flanked the wooden dance floor. The walls were covered with funky old beach signs and pictures of celebrities who had visited Fat Harold’s and plaques listing all the shag dance champions over the years.

Dave and Grace sat on the sidelines and ordered a drink, while Clare and I took our places on the dance floor.

They lined us up, women on one side of the floor and men on the other and taught us the basic step of shag which is a six-step choreography, where the partners take three steps towards each other, three steps in the middle, then back two steps so they are constantly moving towards and apart in perfect flow. The goal is to dance as smoothly and synchronized as possible. The instructors took a bit too much time focusing on the basic steps for my liking. I would have liked to learn some of the fancy footwork and spins that shag is known for, but it was still fun.

I assumed most of the people taking the lesson that night came as couples, but it was surprising and fun to see how many singles there were in the crowd when they paired us up. People were laughing and smiling as they counted out the steps with their new dance partner.

We went to sleep that night with the basic steps refrain of “one-and-two, three-and-four, five-six” in our heads. It was a shaggin’ good time.

This week’s #HappyAct is to learn a new dance step. Here’s a throwback. One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was “Busta move” and I shared a link to the shag dancing championships! My friend Dianna who was pictured in that old blog post dancing with me dances four days a week. She was telling me recently that most of the dance classes she goes to are mainly older women, so any guys out there, if you’re interested in meeting women or just finding a good dance partner, go dancing!