Hyperreal

Last night we had a guest teacher at the GUU, so I made sure I turned up in time for the beginner’s class – wanted to get the full experience…

And an interesting experience it was too…

The key difference was that this wasn’t a CTA-trained Ceroc teacher, so we didn’t get the same script for each move that you get used to.

It’s the thing about how you don’t miss something until it’s gone… I had never really noticed the scripting of beginner moves, but listening to a different teacher teach the moves you suddenly realise that he’s doing it differently…

I can see both good and bad things with scripting the moves. Hopefully the script will include everything needed to teach the move, and ensure that nothing gets forgotten about, or confused. But at the same time by not using a script, you can bring different points up which may help some people more than the standard script. And if it changes every time you do it, you might stand a better chance of helping a greater range of people.

Hmm… That’s not very clear… Let’s use an an analogy… If you’re painting a wall with a roller you’ll get good coverage, but you may miss corners and edges – that’s teaching from a script. If you’re painting with a spray gun, it might take longer, and there’s a danger of missing bits, but it’s easier to get into the corners – that’s non-scripted teaching.

Anyway, there were loads of first or second time beginners, but they all seemed to manage well, so script or no script, teaching was achieved!

In fact, it’s a shame that recently the GUU doesn’t seem to be attracting the same numbers of non-beginner dancers that it used to… It has a core set of regulars, many of whole you rarely see elsewhere – but there’s quite a lot of folks who seem to have “graduated” to dancing at JJ’s and are rarely seen at the GUU. I guess it’s because there are so many more dancers at JJ’s, it’s likely to give a better night. Though with JJ’s getting more and more crowded, maybe that’ll change…

Anyway, let’s get back to the class…

These were the intermediate moves…

• Short back-hander – classic move of the night… LH round the back, into RH and turn though to the other side… Normally I think you’d face, but this time we continue facing the same direction with the girl behind, R-R…

• Catapult turn-out – start with the one-handed catapult and sweep LH behind thing of a catapult walk, but lead girl round in front with LH (let go RH!) and then with your RH over her L shoulder continue leading her round to behind where you were… As she turns you can continue to lead her round to turn and face, you re-connect R-R. (Not a good description, but a very simple action… ) Combine with the previous move the obvious way…

• Comb push-spin – simple variant of the comb… a gentle CW push-spin on the girl’s upper arm as you both spin and reconnect L-R. Return.

• Basket duck-under and spin – from the return go two-handed… Normal basket start, but lift R arm up and continue leading the girl in to go backwards under the arm. End up in a cross-over hand-hold, which you get out of just with a ACW spin, catching L to go back to the first move…

I don’t like the back-hander (probably because I’m not good at it,) so it’s not going to get much practice… I should practice catapult variants where I keep my back to the girl – I don’t do “pure” catapults very much, so I’m usually in the wrong place to bring the girl round for the scoop into my side… I think it’s mainly because I don’t like facing away from my partner. Seems a bit rude, and also I want to know where she is and what she’s doing… (hopefully something worth watching… Like smiling. )

I’m getting better at combs, but let’s not run before we can walk….

The basket duck move can also be done as a hijack, which worried me as I’d expected all the ladies to be hijacking my baskets for the rest of the night… Never happened though…. I didn’t find the spin bit especially convincing… I think that may have been because we always ended up too far away from each other to get good leverage… It’s an interesting variant on the basket though, so I’ll probably try to find a better exit for it that works for me…

I had lots of lovely dances with some of my favourite Wednesday night regulars and not-so regulars… Had some nice comments from one or two folks. Not a bad night.

Finished off with a wee run-through of the routine I’m doing on Sundays – what we’ve done so far. Once with no partner, then with a girl who’s thinking of doing the routine when it’s taught again in Glasgow. Felt really awkward doing it, first on my own, and second with an audience watching… Looking forward to Sunday though!

Cheers everybody, hope you all had as good a night as I did…