Hyperreal

So I was back at JJ’s tonight, “fashionably late” as Franck put it – thanks Franck, the more the women know my name, maybe the more they’ll want to dance with me and the better I’ll get. I wish.

So, beginners’ moves were… armjive, shoulder slide, wiggle, ceroc spin, octopus. All good stuff. Not sure how well the wiggling went, but it was a laugh anyway.

Intermediate moves… can’t remember if the first one got a name, but it was a basket variation unwrapping the girl behind, swapping her hand behind your back, turn to face and block (all these three bits in a “snap”) and from there you could spin or whatever. (You are in a left-to-left hold at the moment.)

Second one went in place of the spin or whatever, where you’d come round to have the girl on your left hand side, facing the same way and you’d turn her into a left-handed sway. From there you’d go into the move proper – a travelling sway pivot, I think it was called. First step back to finish the sway, then walk forward, pivoting the sway the other way, then a simple step and push out for a right to right hold.

Last move was a “classic” man wrap. Start with a catapult-type draw-through of the lady, but drop your hand to the side instead of up and back. Turn to face the lady, going into a half-nelson. Bring your left hand up and guide the lady’s right arm around in a turn. Keep turning until you’re dizzy (I was!) and then step out for a double handhold for the basket variation again.

Please correct any aspect of these descriptions that are wrong!

I got the first two moves OK, though by no means perfect. The last move I had a bit of trouble with. First I kept forgetting I had to turn to face the lady; second, usually by the time I got there she had already started the walking round bit without my help. Oh, and last, I couldn’t get the end of the move right – how to smoothly transfer to the double handhold. In a lot of these walk-round moves I miss the end because I’m too busy going round in circles to see what the teacher is doing!

The move I’d like to keep for the future is the sway pivot thing. Now it starts with a left-left handhold, which isn’t easy to get, but I figure if I did the move backward it might also work. To move from a left-left to a crossed over r-r, l-l handhold must be quite simple.

In freestyle, boosted with the experience of doing some swaying in class, I led a few classic sways, and found that holding onto both hands as you come out is a good way to get a crossed handhold. I like it when that happens because then I can do double-handed turns and returns, and even a two-handed yo-yo, though I’ll need to go back and figure out how these moves finish up (I recall a secret swizzle at some point?) to give myself a good exit strategy back into a more conventional handhold.

I suppose because I was happy with my new-found swaying ability, I felt a lot better about my dancing tonight. Apart from that, I don’t think my dancing was really much different from last week, where I was on a bit of a downer. There are probably lots of other wee things that were affecting my mood tonight, but they added up… It’s funny how the little things can make a big difference.

That said, both at the GUU last week and at JJ’s tonight I found I had to do a lot more asking than I have been used to. OK, at JJ’s I’m used to having to ask, but even some of the people who have often asked me in the past didn’t tonight. I’m still trying to work that one out. Maybe it’s just something about the crowd on the night. Or maybe it’s because all the keen women have danced with me enough and got bored. (Or worse, because they just don’t like dancing with me.) I’m trying to not let it bother me, but a guy could easily get paranoid…

So there’s a baby aerials workshop a week on Saturday, but I need to have a partner. Don’t think this is going to happen. Talked to one girl about partners and such things, but she wasn’t biting. Had a good suggestion of someone else, though I don’t think that’ll happen in time for the 9th. Never mind, just having someone to work with on the more grounded moves would be cool, and maybe if I’m lucky I could have a partner in time for the pre-comps workshop coming at the end of July. (Don’t see it somehow, but I live in hope!)

Still in two minds about the champs – I’m intending to go, but not sure about the Lucky Dip. I could be so out-classed, both by the competition, but even worse, by my partner. But it’s always possible I could just end up having fun.

So that was it… Thanks ladies for the dances, and cheers to everyone involved in making my night a better place to be.