Hyperreal

Hi folks!

Is this my 11th or 12th class? I can’t remember anymore. Either way, maybe you want to know how it went???

I normally start off with a brief statement on how I felt the night went. This time I want you to rate how you think I felt on a scale of 1 to 10. (Hey, why should I do all the work here?)

So turned up nicely early but still lots of people coming in late. Bad people. They missed the fun “Ceroc Essentials” at the start.

I haven’t talked about this bit before – I think this is one of the recent innovations of the beginner’s class which takes the place of the warm-up that we did anyway but didn’t have a trade-mark name.

I think it’s quite useful, gets everyone going, gets my limbs moving. I’m really hopeless though at doing things with hands and feet at the same time. Why is why I normally go through this bit with my hands in my pockets… :blush:

Oh, I didn’t mention, but if you’ve been following you’d know we had Franck as teacher again this week. Surprisingly he didn’t seem to bring the crowds of fans I expected – maybe my theory was wrong. :confused: We did get lots of new beginners again this week though. :waycool:

So the beginners class taught us: first move; shoulder slide; yo-yo; ceroc spin. Not quite mastered the ceroc spin yet, but I think a lot of how you do that move is in how your partner does it. If you’re just going to just stand there and look at me when I’m trying to lead you into a block, it’s not going to be easy to spin you… The other problem I found was quite often I’d catch with my left rather than my right after the shoulder slide. This must be the an aspect of the left-handed thing that surprisingly few people have been interested in discussing so-far. (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5244)

It was funny how different partners reacted to it. I knew I could switch hand easy enough, but one or two partners seemed unnecessarily alarmed that I had used the wrong hand. Hey, let me deal with it – it’s just my problem until it matters for the next move and if I don’t get it sorted before then, you can then stop and tell me I’m a big fat idiot. (Or words to that effect.)

I guess it can be off-putting for beginners, though should they really even notice?

Enough of this, hope I haven’t gone too far into the criticism of beginners territory again. :flower:

First free-style went pretty well, got asked to dance by folks, asked other folks to dance. (I’d wanted to take the chance to say “Hi!” to Franck, but couldn’t find him the few times I was free.) Can’t remember how many dances I had or with who, but it was all pretty good. Was trying hard to avoid repetitive first-moves and seemed to do not bad. Still got that “travelling” return problem, especially when I’m on my right hand. (Another left-hander issue???)

Onto the intermediate class. I think Franck must have taken pity on me after last week, as I found this week’s moves much more manageable than last’s. (Not that they weren’t still pretty tough, so maybe it’s just that last week was an off week for me.)

I kept missing the names of the moves again, but the first two moves were variations on the first move…

The first one had an extra wee turn bit which led into a lean (a baby lean?) I’ve always wanted to learn this lean thing since I saw it in action way back in January. (That’s before I started – if there’s one move that brought me to ceroc, that’s the one!)

I didn’t do so bad at this one. I need to get better shoes for dancing in as I sometimes found it difficult to get my feet into position for a safe lean. I’m exploring my options this week. This though is my move of the week!

The second variation on the first move we combined with the first one, but I guess can be done on it’s own. I wish I could remember the correct names!!! It stopped the move as the girl came back round to the front and you’d lead a slide-kind-of-thing as you stepped away sideways from each other.

Not so good at this one. Franck spent a lot of time talking about how to do the footwork involved, but I was too busy getting the hands in the right places to worry much about my feet!

Next up was some sort of accordion. Can’t remember the exact name again, but you’d turn the girl one and a bit turns to your side and block and then reverse it. Repeat as desired.

This was pretty easy really. A move I’ll have to think about using again.

Coming out of that we went into an arm-lock walk thing. Would swivel round, lock arms and go walkies!

Not so bad, but I could never get the arm lock done right.

And that was it!

Freestyle started and although I’d planned a wee breather, and was still hoping to get a chance to say “Hi” to Franck, girls kept dragging me up to dance! Eventually I hid behind a table so I could have a wee pit-stop and get some water in me. That worked!

And then Franck came and said hello! It was good to meet you and have a wee chat about things. I got a mini master-class where my returning problems were diagnosed and hopefully I’m on my way to fixing them. As part of this I had to dance following his lead to see my error from the other point of view. Have to say that being led by Franck was an illuminating experience. What I’d give to have his technique! Ladies, you don’t know how lucky you are! (To dance with him, and (separately) to not have to worry about leading.)

After that I didn’t dance so much – only with a couple of beginners. With one of them I was trying out lots of returns to see if I could improve them, to perhaps some effect, but not much yet – definitely room for improvement.

The other was a first-timer and didn’t want to dance any moves she hadn’t just been taught, but as she got bored of them I introduced a few others. Because I’m still only a “beginner-intermediate” I wasn’t able to lead her the way experienced dancers can, and so instead went into a sort-of teacher mode talking her through some of the harder-to-lead moves. In retrospect, I don’t think that was very useful – sometimes it’s easier to learn by just doing.

And by then I was tired and so left for home. :nice:

So, marks out of 10 for enjoyment? Let me know what you think!

What else can I say? Missed seeing some people I’d hoped to see, enjoyed meeting new people instead. Met someone who lurks on these forums but hardly ever posts – and I know there are quite a few others of you out there.

So, strawberries to all the cool people who were there, and raspberries to all the sad people who could have been there but weren’t.

Better take cover behind that table again! :really:

Bye for now! :waycool: