Are you saying that people in the audience clapped their own hands and slapped their chest or thighs to the beat-similar to "pattin juba?"* Or did they turn to face a person sitting next to them and alternately clap both of their own hands or one or both hands of the person they were facing? I presume that they stayed in seated. Is this right?


The "Hand Jiving" I recall from school was that the person was seated and the hands were dancing, so to speak-- purposeful and graceful waving of hands being held up in the air at about chest level. Not a patting game, or even necessarily a partnered activity. I keep picturing it as a thing to do while riding around in a car... maybe that was just us, my group.....

Maybe in high school? So that would be late 60's in the north suburban Chicago area. (Not a very diverse area at that time.)

There was a song "Hand Jive," and I'd love to be able to see the group that did it. Were they demonstrating it? Lost now in memory... The chorus: "Hand Jive.... Hand Jive. Hand Jive-- doing that crazy Hand Jive." On the radio. On TV.

~S~