Hyperreal

Hi Everybody,

First I want to thank you all for the really welcoming and supportive messages. I’m touched. :hug:

Now I’ll try to answer all the points made and questions raised…

I’m still planning to go back this week. I fully plan to stick with it. I had a lot of fun the first night and don’t expect I’ll not enjoy it again. I don’t think I’m “hooked” just yet, but I can see how it can happen.

The night after I went I couldn’t sleep properly. It took me ages to get to sleep and I woke up at about 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I guess this is down to the adrenaline or whatever the hormones are that you are filled with after so much fun and excitement. Instead of lying in bed with dance moves going through my head I got up and wrote my first message for these forums.

Anyway, I guess I’m going to turn into an insomniac dance and forums addict. Or else it’ll be the death of me.

I hope I’ll do better this week during the freestyle periods. The girl that asked me for a dance last week probably didn’t know I was an absolute beginner and she seemed to be very advanced in comparison to me. As I had never, ever, properly led a ceroc dance at that time you have to understand why I feel it didn’t really work out well for me.

This week I’ll try to ask one of the other novices I met last week (if they come back) for a dance, and at least we’ll be in the same boat, and not facing the daunting prospect of dancing with someone who could overwhelm them.

OK, I know it’s important to dance with people who are more experienced than you are, but let’s take one step at a time. Hopefully the same taxi dancer will be there this week and will take pity on me again. (Or maybe she really did find me cute! )

(bigdjiver speculated that it was because I was the only male beginner which led to my adoption by the taxi dancer, but there were three of us, and only I got this one-to-one attention. Although as I said in my first message, it’s a possibility she just didn’t see the others.)

I don’t think I’ll stay long after the consolidation class. Again, this time I’ll try to have maybe one dance with another beginner, but I’ll probably head home early again, and see if I can’t chill out and get a good night’s sleep. (How do other people chill out after a class?)

Again, I need to emphasis how hard this whole thing is for guys. Unless I’m dancing with a girl who’s also learnt the male parts, my partner doesn’t really understand what it’s like to be a guy starting off.

Just to make it clear - I’m not worried about rejection. Or at least, that’s not my main worry. I’m tough enough, and had enough rejections in the past not to let it get to me. It’s really about the dancing.

Maybe I just don’t understand yet leading and following. It looks to me to be some sort of magic. How can the girl possibly know what she’s supposed to be doing based on what random things I happen to be doing with my hands and feet?

Our teacher taught us to do we semi-circles with our hands to indicate to our partner that we were about to step back (or something like that.) Is this leading or signalling or part of the move? I understand that signalling is frowned upon by some people - I also understand why.

A related worry is that even if i manage to lead effectively, I’m not so sure I will be able to string together moves effectively. This actually breaks down into two perceived problems…

1. Knowing what move you want to do next but finding out too late that you’re using the wrong hand going in. Leading to a bit of a mess. Seems like you have to remember moves as being either right-right moves or left-right moves, and god help you if it gets any more complicated than that!

2. Coming up with interesting, exciting, imaginative moves all at the same time as your poor head is struggling trying to remember what it’s supposed to be doing right now, never mind in a few seconds time. Even if I get good at the individual moves, how do I decide what I’m going to do next? Ceilidh dancing is pretty easy in this regard - you’re all doing the same thing and if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong and can just copy someone else who seems to know what they’re doing.

I’d like to go to a beginner’s workshop where perhaps all this will become a lot clearer. Unfortunately, the one announced at the class clashes with an appointment I have with my mother (Mother’s day, 6th March!) Hopefully there’ll be another one soon after - can I ask that you try to avoid Easter?

John S asked an interesting question about age difference and whether older ladies are put off because older guys didn’t ask them to dance. I’d guess it’s just that proportionally more older guys go because there are fewer younger guys - less competition.

I can’t fully remember the moves we learnt last week - I’ve got the outline in my head, but there were probably more turns and such that I can’t remember. As for their names…

• Well, the first one was called something like “shoulder drop”. It took a while for me to learn to turn the right way, but otherwise, not so bad. We did a cool pull through thing on the end of that that probably has its own name.

• Then we did something like “reverse male spin”. If anyone can correct me on these names, I’d be grateful. That wasn’t so difficult, though I usually managed to either catch the girl with the wrong hand, or just miss her completely. This made the next move trickier. There was probably a turn stuck on the end of this move too.

• So next was the “back pass”. I’ve read the other thread about this one, and I’m not 100% sure whether we were taught to let go and then catch the girl’s hand, or whether to actually pass it from hand to hand. I am 100% sure, however that I was letting go and trying to catch. Again, missing the catch makes leading into the next move difficult. Once, more we probably had a turn or something at this point.

• The last move we learnt was the source of much of my confusion. You know why. Because although it was the last move we did, it was called the “first move”. In fact it was a “first move push spin”. So every time the teacher said “first move” I was thinking “shoulder drop”, rather than “fancy side-to-side thing”.

The biggest problem I had with the first move was remembering to step back as I turned the girl. That said, I also had problems getting the right palm-to-palm thing for the push spin. It seemed to me that leading well is much more important in this move, and my taxi dancer was very keen to make me try harder with this. Of course the push spin would end with me either not catching my partner or using the wrong hand.

So as you see this problem with knowing what hand to use to go into the next move isn’t just academic, every time I let go of the girl’s hand I had a 50/50 chance of coming back with the wrong hand afterwards.

I had a wee practice session with my friend and that went quite well, though that might have been because we were a little bit drunk. We didn’t really practice for long though, it was more just so I could show her what I’d learnt.

Last thing… about what I said about not telling my mates. I’m not really concerned that they’ll think it’s “gay” or whatever, but that they’ll make a fuss about it. Especially about why I’m doing it. I could just do without the hassle. I think though that if I get into it, and get at least semi-decent, then I’ll not keep it a deep dark secret. I’ve already told a couple of people.

And so to end, I want to again thank you all for your support, helpful hints and pointers.

Again, I’m wondering where all the people I met last week are on this forum. I guess my location might have given away where my class is. By describing the moves I learnt, that must give it away to the people who were there, no? So, why has no-one posted who is from Glasgow? (Or at least who won’t admit it directly?)

And that’s me done. Thanks for reading this far!

Cheers!

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the kind words and helpful advice.

I’m sorry I don’t have time to reply properly just now but hopefully I’ll have time at the weekend.

I’ve just got two wee related comments to make just now…

I may have over-egged my feelings of helplessness and vulnerability just to emphasis the sorts of things I was feeling. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

All the people telling me to laugh off the blunders and such - I was nearly killing myself laughing a lot of the time during the lesson either because I’d messed up or because I’d done it right!

I’m also wondering if there’s anyone here who was there the other night and recognise my tale…

Later dudes,

Ducasi

Hi,

I went to a Ceroc class for the first yesterday. I thought I would share my impressions.

First, some background. I don’t have any history of dancing - never been to any sort of classes since school. I’ve always enjoyed ceilidhs and such though.

I was persuaded to go by a friend who attends quite regularly, though she wasn’t at the class last night - I figured it would be less stressful if I wasn’t worried about making a fool of myself in front of anyone I know. She had filled me in on how things work though, so there wouldn’t be any big surprises.

When I got there I was surprised by a couple of things. First, “joining” Ceroc is very simple - I didn’t have to give any details at all about myself, not even my name. Second, I thought there would be a bigger fuss made of a new person, but there didn’t seem to be anyone there to do that.

Because I’d been fore-warned, I pretty much knew what was going to to happen during the beginners session, but I think I’d have been pretty lost otherwise - it can take me a bit of time to acclimatise. Fortunately, the partner I had first seemed to know the ropes and things went pretty smoothly.

So the moves we were learning that night looked very complicated. I’m really surprised that I managed to learn it at all. The partners I had varied in their skill and helpfulness, but I was quickly adopted by one of the taxi dancers, and she stuck with me the rest of the session. She was just brilliant and helped me a lot (when she wasn’t managing to confuse me. )

I don’t know what I did to receive her dedicated attention - there were maybe 4 or 5 other new people. Perhaps I just looked more lost than the others, or maybe she didn’t see them all when the teacher asked us to put our hands up. I’d like to think that she thought I was just cuter than the others.

So, I guess I’ve just revealed that I’m male, so I guess we can talk about that for a bit - what it’s like to be a guy beginner.

The good part: You get to stay put on the floor all the time.

The bad part: You are meant to be able to lead.

I was asked to dance during the “freestyle” bit after the beginner’s session by an intermediate. I didn’t have much of a clue. I did manage to do some of the stuff just taught to me, and my partner was a bit surprised but impressed that I had learnt such difficult moves for my first lesson.

I had tried to hide by making myself busy having some water and talking to the taxi dancer, but she had to go and arrange the revision bit and I was left alone and vulnerable.

Up to now I haven’t mentioned any names or the place, I probably won’t post this today, so it’s less obvious where I was. Although I don’t think I’ve said anything bad about anyone, I don’t think it’s appropriate to identify individuals unless they want to identify themselves. I guess some people might be able to work it out though. (I also tried to post this anonymously, but wasn’t able to… oh well.)

I’m now going to talk a little about the location which may also make it easier to figure out where I was.

Over-all the location was quite good. It’s a place I’m fairly familiar with anyway, which helped. There was really only one problem. When us beginners went elsewhere to practice our new moves with the taxi dancers, we found that there wasn’t a place for us to go to. We ended up dancing in a fairly cramped space, with a wet and sticky floor and the occasional passer-by having to walk through us. Not ideal.

The revision bit did help a lot though. In fact I learnt things that weren’t covered by the teacher - more general stuff that she wouldn’t have time to go through during the class. Very useful.

After that we went back to the main hall and watched the intermediates doing their routine. They broke up quite quickly though and it was back to freestyle dancing.

I hid by concentrating on the text I was sending to my friend to say how much I’d enjoyed it. I haven’t really said here how much I enjoyed the whole night. Ceroc dancing is remarkably easy and really good fun. During the lesson I couldn’t stop grinning I was having such a good time.

After sending the text, I made my escape before I was accosted again and asked to dance by anyone who would know any more steps than me, and would be confused by my feeble attempts to lead them.

And this is where we get to the big problem for me. The one thing that is putting me off going back is the pressure on the guy to lead. I don’t want to find myself asked by more experienced dancers to dance and then not know what to do. I don’t want to do the asking either. What chance does an absolute beginner guy have?

I’ve seen other discussions where people have talked about what is needed to persuade more guys to do Ceroc. One thing I noticed last night was that there seemed to be a different age profile between the guys and the girls - the average age of the guys seemed to be a bit higher, though I may have been mistaken - to tell the truth, I hardly noticed the guys anyway. (What do you expect?)

I guess the big thing is about perception. I’m not going to be telling all my friends that I went to a dance class last night. It’s just like in “Shall We Dance” if you’ve seen it. There’s a lot of stigma attached to the idea of guys wanting to actually learn how to dance. I guess as we mature that tends to diminish.

I’m not really sure how to combat this problem. I hesitate to mention this, but one thing I did enjoy last night was meeting so many girls so quickly. (Most of which were really nice, though there were a few we just won’t talk about.) I guess it’s a bit like speed dating, but with less talking and more spinning. Now maybe if this aspect was emphasised to guys more, it would get them through the door. After that they’re either going to get hooked on it or not, but at least they’ll have experienced it and be able to make an informed decision.

OK, I think I’ve written more than enough now. Anything else you want to know, just ask…

Before I go, I’d like to thank all the partners I had last night, the teacher and the taxi drivers for making my first time so much fun. I also want to thank my pal for making me go along.

Cheers!