Hyperreal

I spent the weekend in Pitlochry, at the “Dance Fever” weekender organised by BoogieNights.

This is the first of three posts about it, in this one I will talk about the workshops, and in the others I talk about the dances, and the weekend as a whole.

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Had my third Salsa class tonight…

I’ll keep this brief though…

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Just want to post a few things I forgot about before…

Extra regrets…

• Missing the showcases. The photos looked great.
• Not taking more pictures. I had my camera with me, but I was too busy dancing or recovering from dancing!

Extra highlights…

• Dancing to “Don’t funk with my heart”, where I got to do some play-acting.
• Dancing to “Jump” by the Sugababes Girls Aloud, where I got my partner to follow me in wee jumps in the breaks when they sing “Jump!”

Both dances were with lovely girls who were up for a laugh and made the dances so much more fun than they would have been with lots of other dancers. Even though I didn’t know either girl especially well, I knew they wouldn’t let me down.

Slightly related to this is the very recent addition of a third dimension to my dancing. In “Jump”, I jumped vertically. In “Don’t funk…” we were in a basket position when the horse sound-effects come in, and I did a wee wiggle down and back up which I thought was very apt for the music. I did a lot more wiggling up and down over Saturday and Sunday in fact, something I’ve never really done before. It was good to lead the girl into this rather than just expect her to do it herself while I stood like the proverbial lemon. I’ve very happy about this. And about the better use of the spare arm I was talking about before…

Last thing, which I hope doesn’t come across the wrong way… I’ve noticed quite a few girls do this funky neck extension on the way out of baskets and the like (and maybe in other places where I don’t get such a good side-on view of my partner.) Anyway, like I say it can look quite funky, but sometimes I think it’s a bit overdone, or if not done well can end up looking a bit like a funky chicken…

I’m wondering if it’s taught by someone, maybe even at the BFG, as I saw a lot of it over the weekend…

Maybe someone can sort me out about this…

I think that’s me covered everything… I didn’t go dancing tonight to JJ’s as I’m still recovering from the weekend and I don’t want to over-do it before my second weekender this weekend. (None for 8 months, then two in a row!)

Maybe I’ll end up posting a coda-coda tomorrow as I remember other things I just have to tell you all about!

Thanks for all your comments!

As promised, here’s my take on the weekend as a whole… I’d like to keep this fairly objective, but so much of the things I’m going to talk about are solely my personal experience, and I can’t help being subjective…

The main thing to take away from this is I had a fantastic time, loads of positives, and hardly any negatives.

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It’s really over…

I’m going to write up a over-view post that’ll have all my thanks to everyone, but I have to say a big thanks to Franck for organising such a fab weekend. I’ve had a fantastic time.

This post is going to be the story of Sunday…

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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…

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Just back from the BFG Friday party… This will be a quick post…

I had a great time, danced loads, with lots of friends, old and new.

It was good to meet lots of people from so-many far-off places, such as Devon, Inverness and Edinburgh.

I don’t think I was dancing particularly well though… I was tired, and a sore back, foot and wrist was holding me back… I’ve had a bit of a sore foot on and off for a while now, and I just think it was because I wasn’t dancing for over a week that brought it back, so I’m hopeful it’ll go away again soon.

The sore wrist just sprung out of no-where during the night, and the sore back is a lot like the sore back I had last week at the Aberdeen party. I’m thinking it’s something about the way I’m dancing (recently) that is maybe using muscles that haven’t been getting much exercise otherwise…

The music was very good, I enjoyed almost all of it – except for a bunch of swing I don’t much care for, and the slower stuff played towards the end of the night, which I don’t feel I can do justice to yet. But there were lots of people who really like this stuff, so I applaud the DJs for the variety of music they played.

I had a couple of dances as a follower, which went better than I had expected. But my leaders (as far as I know) weren’t very experienced at leading, though I thought we all did very well. I really enjoyed it, and hope I can get at least one dance as a follower each night I’m dancing.

We did a couple of moves in a short “fun” class, near the start…

• Catapult collect walk-around first move thing. Catapult start, don’t offer LH, bring the girl to your L side, and sweep arm under to collect her by the waist. Can let go nelsoned RH now. Lead her round in CW circle, giving lots of eye contact, and once you’ve had enough, shrug her round in front of you to collect her in a open first move position, breaking eye contact. Finish as first move push spin.
• Comb and comb again. Return and comb… give a taste of eye contact before turning away to turn CW under continued R-R handhold until you come round and comb again. More eye contact. Push away to collect R-R again. For effect the turn can be as fast or slow as you want – even put a pause in the middle of it if you like…

In case it wasn’t obvious, these moves were all about eye contact.

But that’s enough from me… It’s 2 am and I’m going to my bed!

It’s going to be a long day tomorrow…

Wooo!!!! This salsa is getting to be fun!!!!

This week was a lot more fun than last week!! We didn’t actually do very much more, but what we did do allowed us to go through a few moves in a sequence until it actually felt like we were dancing! Then we got to do Rueda!

We started with some simple Salsa steps Read the rest of this entry »

A triumphant return to the GUU tonight after fleeing there two weeks ago in sickness. Well, when I say triumphant, I mean I had a good night and don’t feel ill, so on balance, pretty good…

This is going to be another short post so I can get to bed… so, the intermediate moves…

• Shoulder basket into a basket (?). Two-handed first-move style step in – taking LH to shoulder, RH lead girl to your side, but when she gets there keep leading her round and turning CW as you also turn 180º, taking RH high and LH low. You want to get her facing away from you, your LH on her L hip holding her right hand and then take the RH over her head to come down to her R hip. (Each move on and off the hip takes place as weight is transferred to that side.) Sway back to the L, R, L and as you go back left raise your RH, unwrapping her to face, keep her turning, and then re-wrapping her in front again (the second basket.) As you are lowering your LH she’s swaying to the L, and again, sway R, L, R and unwrap and step back. Travelling return into another double-handed hold.
• Wurlitzer Pretzel – Standard wurlitzer start but catapult the lady under your right arm (using an unusual R-L handhold) and turn ACW to nelson yourself presenting the girl with your spare left hand. Although you connect with a flat hand, you’re basically going into a normal pretzel with the standard L-R step back at the end. Straight into the next move…
• Double turn first moves – (classic beginner variation of the night?) This is the one when you double turn the girl on the way out of the first move and chase round her to go straight into the open out step on the first move, and then normally repeated. Return to go double-handed for the shoulder basket…

I maybe only did the first move variant during freestyle, but not the others. The entry to the shoulder basket is too different that I guess I never found myself there to do it. Almost all baskets I lead are from semi-octopuses, and that wouldn’t work here… I don’t do any of these sort of wrap/sway moves, and I’d like to, so I’m going to have to try to remember this move, practice it and see if I can add it to my rep. Similarly, I don’t often find myself in a wurlitzer lead, so the pretzel addition didn’t really happen for me…

I had quite a good night, though a lot of the people I normally look out for weren’t there… At times it was quite difficult to get a dance with a good dancer, though there were quite a few beginner dancers that I had some fun dancing with. I got the opportunity to have more than one dance with a few especially lovely people, so overall, I can’t complain.

Only two more days to the BFG… Just so-long as my feet hold out, I think I might be able to get through it!

See you tomorrow, when I’ll have been to my second Salsa class…

Three days to go to the BFG, and I’m worried…

I’m worried that my recent forced absence (OK, it was just a week) has had a negative impact on my dancing – it’s not so much that I’m worried I’ve forgotten how to dance, as I’m concerned that my stamina and general health has suffered, and it is going to take another week or so that I don’t have to get back to full fitness.

So tonight, although I felt I was dancing fairly well, I was getting tired and my feet were hurting.

Let’s talk about the class… I was following again with my usual leader during the beginners’ class… Moves were arm-jive swizzle, in-and-out, basket, shoulder slide, catapult.

I think I did a fair bit better than my last time two weeks ago… Not sure why, but I expect the freestyle following I was doing on Saturday helped, plus I’m just getting more used to it. Oh, I’m sure also that as my leader improves her lead it is helping my following. I’m still pants though. We had a really inexplicable problem with our hand-hold getting twisted up going into the basket… Puzzling. I also apparently had a tendency to shoot the gate on the way out, doing a bit of back-leading. I wasn’t really aware of it though… Got better as I made greater conscious effort to be better.

We had a lot of fun though, spent most of the class in laughter…

Intermediate class… Read the rest of this entry »

Not long back from a weekend away in Aberdeen… I had a fabulous time!

First I’ve got to mention two very lovely ladies, one of whom was generous to share her company and car to get me there, and the other who also shared her company and put me up for the night in comfort. Without their generosity I’d have been stuck at home all weekend doing the boring virtuous stuff I was meant to be doing.

I couldn’t ask for two better friends.

Getting down to it now… Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, just back from dancing, but it was different!

It wasn’t Ceroc, it was Salsa!!!

I’ve got myself signed up for an 8 week course, although I missed the first class last week due to illness… There were lots of people there for the first time this week, so it wasn’t so bad…

In fact it was a lot of fun!

Understandably, I guess I’m mainly going to talk about the differences between how and what we’ve been taught in Ceroc and what I’m learning in Salsa…

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Well I wasn’t fit to go dancing tonight. I’m all over the sickness and stuff, but I don’t think my legs count take full night of dancing. Don’t think my head could take all the spinning round, without falling over either.

Instead I’ve given my blog a makeover… Like the new colours?

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This post was postponed from Wednesday night…

I went to the GUU, in the downstairs hall again. I much prefer it to the upstairs one. I arrived just as the beginners class was starting and found I was a spare man… This isn’t that unusual for the GUU though, and with a female teacher it’s a great place for beginner ladies to go. In fact, I’d say it’s generally got a friendlier feel than JJ’s, it’s not so crowded and because it’s harder to hide in a dark corner, it’s probably better for all beginners.

I had a really great night overall. I rediscovered why I like this venue so much… I suppose it’s mainly because it’s where I started, but there are some slightly less subjective things I can mention…

• Because it’s not so busy, it’s easier to find the wee gems of dancers who maybe don’t venture out often.
• Because many of the really good dancers tend to go to JJ’s rather than the GUU you can feel a lot better about your dancing.
• I get asked to dance loads more at the GUU than at JJ’s despite there always being many more spare women at JJ’s.
• If you need to take a break you can step outside and you’ll usually bump into nice people that you can chat with.
• Downstairs the lights are never dimmed too much.
• It’s easier to talk to people on and off the floor as it doesn’t have an all-pervasive sound-system.
• The bar policy is more relaxed.
• Smaller pond => bigger fish.

It’s funny, cos on Tuesday I had been thinking that my dancing wasn’t progressing and I felt a bit down… On Wednesday I thought I was dancing a lot, lot better, in fact I felt on top of the world, and apparently some of that was picked up by my partners… I got loads of really great compliments on my dancing. In particular, I was told that my dancing/leading style was quite a bit like another guy’s whom I rate as a good dancer. Well chuffed by that.

Or maybe it’s all because I was a bit light-headed… Towards the end of the intermediate class, though more after a couple of dances in the main freestyle, I began to feel a bit under the weather. I had figured it as a lack of energy and went and bought some chocolate, but it didn’t seem to help any, and I eventually had to step out of the room a couple of times to give myself a break where I wouldn’t be asked to dance.

I almost went home early, but allowed myself the last dance with one of my favourite dancers before rushing off… To cut a long story short, I had some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning or something, and spent much of the night throwing up. Felt like death. Only feel a little better now… :?

Quick review of the intermediate class…

• One-handed catapult. Classic move, and one of my favourites.
• Right-handed block. This move wasn’t actually given a name, but it goes well with the LH block we did on Tuesday… On the return from the previous move step forward and left and raise right hand into a block. We didn’t put a long dramatic pause at this point, but as you’re not face-to-face with your partner, maybe it’s not so much fun. A gentle lead to turn the lady (reversing the move) until we’re both at the step back bit. We repeated this move twice for fun.
• Sway whip (or was it Whip sway?) Lead the girl into a sway, but connect with her left arm and push her out to turn and come behind you. You’re still holding on to her R-R, but while she’s back there switch her hand to your left and bring her round to the front with a wee turn thrown in on the way for good measure.
• Half pretzel. Went straight into this from the previous move. Ended with a spin to move from R-L to R-R for the catapult…

A fairly east bunch of moves. I’m fairly competent at the half pretzel, though I’ve noticed I don’t use either it, or the full pretzel very often currently… The sway whip thing I never felt went very smoothly with any of my partners during the class, so never tried it during the freestyle. Have to think about the RH block - although it went OK in class, if my partner wasn’t expecting it, how well would it work… Hmm…

Well that was Wednesday… I’m now really glad there’s no dancing in Glasgow tomorrow, as I don’t think I would be able to make it, and that would have been a tragedy.

Hope I’m fit for Tuesday!!

Hey, JJ’s tonight…

And my second week as a follower…

Moves were first move push spin, yo-yo, comb, step across.

We had done the fmps last week, so it was OK. The yo-yo was a different story. I was shocked at the intensity of the lead and block. Even when my leader toned it down a bit, it was still woooo!!! The comb was fun. The step-across is very easy for the follower, but I was surprised how much difficulty it presented to my lead. I think maybe it’s because such a simple move for the follower it makes it harder for a follower-turned-leader to apply her learned knowledge to it.

I had two major problems through-out though… Ones that I had anticipated…

• I can’t spin for toffee. My new dance trainers make spinning easy, but maybe it’s because of the extra inch or so that I was flailing all over the place in all my turns. (Who out there is saying “a poor workman blames his tools”?? Grrr.)
• I apparently have spaghetti arms. When I’m leading it’s easy to know how much tension (I think) I need to use. Much, much harder when following. I think I improved a little on this just by having it drawn to my attention, but it’s something I’m going to have to work on.

Minor problems like where I should have my spare hand during first move and yo-yo turn-outs can wait.

Much later we had a go at dancing during the freestyle, which was a lot of fun… But the music was a bit too fast I think and we struggled a bit.

But that was us skipping way too far forward… let’s skip back to the intermediate class…

• 5 beat first move – starts the same… on the back in, keep LH low to the hip, small lead in to give the girl a clue what we’re about to do and then lead the girl directly out using both hands equally to make sure she doesn’t try to turn or spin or anything.
• Back-hander – classic move. I’ve no doubt described this before… LH, lead the girl in, bringing RH to girl’s hip, and taking her RH round behind her (low) until she’s in a nelson, when you can put her RH into yours. She’ll have turned at least half way CW by this stage. Keep leading her with RH on hip (not by pulling her hand) for full turn out of the nelson, and then another CW turn by raising RH above her head. She should be dizzy but smiling at this point.
• Comb push spin. Return into standard comb, but as you’re leading a slow sway, holding her arm onto your shoulder with your LH, bring the RH up and when it’s clear what it’s there for, push-spin her CW with it. This would also be a good time for the guy to spin ACW. Catch L-R. (Think we stuck a return in here?)
• Block turn (?) Lead her straight in, like you were going to do a turn or return, but bring her to a halt with LH up in flat-hand style. Want to have an assertive stance for this. When you’re good at ready a small ripple/nudge from the heel of the LH should lead the girl into a CW turn. From here, you go straight into another one, do a return, step back and in and block again, whatever…

The move I had the biggest problem with (and always have) was the back-hander. The bringing the girl’s arm round is very difficult, especially if you want to keep your RH on her hip. So, the approach I took, and advocated by Franck if we were having problems, was just to forget about getting the hand all the way round the back and caught. At that point all the lead in in the RH on the hip, and you can reconnect R-R for the final turn when her hand comes round anyway.

During the freestyle I kept wondering why the place was unusually quiet… Then I remembered – there was at least six girls away on a dancing holiday, but that just allowed me to dance with some of the other girls that I guess I may sometimes overlook. The novelty was good, and hopefully I’m smart enough to dance with them more often in the future…

I’ve got to say I found my new shoes really good on the floor tonight, and my feet are feeling pretty chilled compared with what they normally feel like. I’m so happy I bought them, and wondering why it took me so long… :?

Cheers everybody…