Hyperreal

Awesome.

My best day of dancing ever. Nothing comes close.

I don’t know if I’ve got time to break it all down, but here’s how the day went…

Started at 10:45, in a queue to get ticked off, which meant the first set of workshops started a bit late…

First workshop was Steve’s Blues intro. We got lots of cool moves, some of which I could do, some of which I struggled with. Hard to believe that going round in a circle could be so difficult…

Next up was Marc’s Cuban Blues… This is a different take on introducing closer moves into MJ, based, I guess on Cuban dances (Salsa???) These moves also reminded me a bit of WCS, in that it was highly slotted, had cross-body leads and was just smooth. I’d like to get to know more of this stuff.

Then was Bill’s Double Trouble Intro… Quite similar to the class he gave at the Aberdeen party last week, but obviously with more time was able to take things slow and put in more detail. I think it made a real difference. I managed to acquire a set of fixed partners for this workshop (a pair of identical twins!) which was good as that meant I was never sitting out, and I found I worked quite well with my partners.

After that I decided to find out what I could do with a lady’s left hand with Franck. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this class but it was basically a beginner’s class in a mirror, doing first moves, man-spins, yo-yos and ceroc spins in a mirror image of what is normal. Even the return became clockwise! We also did a first move variation (one of my favourites) and looked at how to get in and out of the lady’ left hand handhold. This was all surprising difficult, and very very weird. I tried it a few times in freestyle later and got mixed responses, between, “ooh, I hate it!” to “ohh, cool!” You only stand a chance being able to do it with a very good follower as it’s very hard to lead most women against what they are used to.

In the last session, I decided to go to the tea dance… I was really tired and needed a break from continuous learning. I was also feeling a bit light-headed and thought that a nice cup of tea was just what I needed. I had some nice dances during this time, but I wasn’t really up for it, and it showed in my dancing.

Early on though I had a go at double trouble with a couple of girls that hadn’t been at the workshop, and if they had done any DT before it was very limited. I was surprised how well it went. The biggest problem was keeping the two girls where they should be in relation to me to make it easier to do the moves, oh, and they didn’t know the hand-tap signal to change the hand they were giving me, but fortunately I have a tongue in my head and asking worked just as well eventually. For my first “freestyle” DT, I thought we did really well, even though I only had about four or five moves… Hope to have another go soon…

So that was the day… just over 7 hours of fairly solid dancing or learning. Tired is not the word. And the party was yet to come!

In fact by the time I got home I felt quite ill and feared I was coming down with another stomach bug or something like that… I had a lie down for a while, then managed something to eat but still didn’t feel great… I figured if I could just make the forum award ceremony, that would be enough and I could sit and soak in the atmosphere without having to dance. This came to a head as time ran out and I had to get myself together and get moving.

And the funny thing was that once I started shifting myself I began to feel a lot better… I made it to the party just in time for the forum award ceremony… I have to confess I was disappointed (but not at all surprised) that I didn’t win any prize. One or two of the winners came as a complete surprise to me, but there you go…

The fancy dress costume competition was a different matter. I didn’t have a costume, but I knew beforehand that there would be someone there dressed as my ice-cream cone avatar… I thought it was fantastic, clearly the greatest effort had gone in to it than any of the others, and it so-much deserved to win. Unfortunately it was pipped at the post by what I assume to by a hired costume. It was good, and quite imaginative, but ultimately I can’t help thinking “we wuz robbed!”

Freestyle dancing resumed quite quickly after that, and soon after the other two rooms with latin and blues opened – not a moment too soon as the main room was getting crowded. It’s funny how these distinctions are made as I heard one or two songs played in all three rooms… (OK, this is a perfectly valid thing to do, but I thought it was funny – especially when the latin and blues rooms had at one time the exact some song being played in both of them.)

Although I had a look into the blues room a few times I didn’t feel I had the right attitude tonight for the Blues… The latin room was OK, but for me, not that different from the main room – the big feature it had for me was that they weren’t playing any swing in it! It was typically when the swing came on that I ventured out of the main room, but otherwise it was my favourite. It had cooler tunes, cooler people and cooler air. (All IMHO!)

The end of the night was kinda-spoilt by a fire alarm being set off at quarter to one, with only two more songs to play. When we got back in it was past 1 am and the last songs had to be abbreviated. A disappointment.

But it couldn’t ruin my enjoyment of a fantastic night of dancing. Unlike last night tonight I felt much more “in the zone”. Except for the occasional attempt to scare women by leading left-hand moves on them, I didn’t try any of the stuff we had done in any of the other workshops all night. I think this was just as well as having to think would have affected my dancing.

I could talk about all the people I’ve met, but I think I’ll leave that until it’s all over… Suffice to say that I’ve met loads of fantastic people from all over, danced with many of them (the girls mainly ) and made a lot of new friends.

I’m off to my bed now… I don’t think I’ll make the first set of workshops in the morning, but none of them are jumping out at me saying “pick me, pick me!” and I think I really need the extra hour or so in bed…

Good night… See you all tomorrow!