Hyperreal

Hmm… Just back from JJ’s, and I’ve got to say I had a pretty bad night.

OK, you’ve got to understand I arrived at Ceroc with a headache just springing into life, which didn’t help my mood or concentration at all, so I wonder how I’d feel otherwise, but that didn’t happen, and I can only report what did.

The first thing that made this night so bad is the bar policy. Or maybe it’s the barman’s policy. I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he has such an attitude, I just thing he enjoys pissing people off.

Here’s the thing… If you’re buying stuff, and ask for water he’ll give you a pint glass with ice and water. Cool. But if you’re not, he’ll give you a plastic half-pint glass with just water, no ice – even if you ask for it.

So you think, well maybe I’ll buy a bottle of water. Uh-uh, not making that mistake again – £2 for a bottle of water that normally costs 50-60p. That’s taking the piss.

The first time I went to JJ’s the barman had jugs of water with ice out for us. What happened to that?

At the GUU on Wednesday, we always get jugs of water (sometimes with ice, if they’ve got it.) Maybe I’ll stick to the GUU in future.

Unhappy.

Next thing is the music. This isn’t really a biggy, and I’m sorry to do this, but I’m in a moany mood. Thing is I’m a young(ish?) guy, who likes clubby dance music. OK, so a lot of it is too fast to dance to. That’s cool. I’m also a relative beginner, and I don’t “get” slow and latin music. I can dance to them, sure, but using the same moves in the same style as I’d use for “Call on Me”. So if I dance with a more experienced partner, she’ll want to put extra interpretation into the dance that I’m not always comfortable with. So maybe I should pick a less experienced dancer for these tracks, but a lot of girls don’t like the slow tunes, maybe for the same reasons as me, but also they probably don’t want slow dances with people they don’t know well.

So, sorry Franck, but I didn’t really like your selection of music. I’m sure that lots of people probably did, but I’m just reporting how the night went for me.

Maybe I’m being too harsh… I did manage to dance as much as I wanted to, there were maybe only a few songs that I just wouldn’t ask anyone to dance to, and I’d always say “yes” if asked and manage through a slow song.

Bottom line is I prefer up-tempo music that’s not so challenging for me. Maybe as I get better that’ll change, but I think that then I’ll prefer up-tempo music that is challenging for me.

Whatever.

The last thing I want to moan about is my crap dancing. Things just weren’t working for me tonight. I don’t blame the music, I don’t blame the barman, I maybe blame the headache, but what that comes down to is I blame myself.

Moves that I had no problem leading as recently as Saturday were messing up tonight. Every time I tried a pretzel it went bad. What’s going on?

My selection of moves was also really poor. How can I still be doing three yo-yos in a row, without having a next move sorted out in my head?

OK, so not all the dances were bad, in fact some were really good, a lot of fun, but as the night went on, my performance and enjoyment diminished.

Not good.

The classes were good though. There were quite a few newcomers tonight and for the most part, they seemed to do well. Beginner moves were first move, shoulder slide, catapult, in-and-out, and a basket. Fairly tricky for a beginner, but everyone I danced with was managing (if not at the beginning, then by the end.)

Intermediate moves were catapult flamenco walk something?. Nice move, a good move to give you a crossed-over hand-hold. This was perfect for the double comb that followed. Came out of that into a left-handed basket walk thing. (Except there wasn’t much walking???)

It took me a while to get the catapult thing, but I had it sussed in the end. The hardest part was figuring out how to turn the girl to my other side to walk the other way. Once I had that figured out, things just fell into place. We were originally shown the double comb with the right-right grip below the left-left. But then we found the return on the catapult left us the other way up. This led to some confusion, and me twice almost bashing my face with my arm. (To the great amusement of my partner at the time. I found it funny too though.)

Not sure what my move of the night was – might experiment with the fancy trigger-fingered catapult… Have to find someone I like to do the double comb with… A quite like baskets, but I’m not sure my lead on the one tonight was very good – at least I found all the girls doing there own thing, no matter how I tried to lead them!

So the night wasn’t all bad, but on balance, I’d give it a thumbs down.

Hope I get myself sorted out for tomorrow!

Thanks Franck for all the good stuff, sorry I had to moan about the bad stuff.

And thanks to the dancers who put up with me. I promise I’ll try harder next time.

Cheers!