Hyperreal

A very mixed night as JJ’s tonight… Some good, some bad…

I’ve got a new theory on what makes a good night, and what makes a brilliant night…

A good night happens when (on average) you are dancing at the level of your abilities. And a brilliant night is one where you go beyond that.

So tonight was mainly a good night, though bad in places with a couple brief episodes of brilliance.

That is, on average I felt I was dancing quite well, though there were a few really poor moments that got me down a bit. But I had one or two really storming dances, and so that swung the balance back to the positive.

Again, I arrived just as the beginner’s class was ending – even the teacher is calling me a hotshot now! I’m not deliberately missing the these classes, but given the same choice I had, I think most guys would do the same.

The intermediate class was full of moves I never really gelled with…

• Catapult Walk Around. Beginner’s variation. Catapult start but bring girl to your LH side, sweeping L arm behind for walk around. Chuck across into open first move, usual exit. I’ve been taught this move loads of time and I’m still not good at doing the chuck-across bit. Or at least I think that’s my problem. Certainly there’s something that happens at that point which always feels bad to me, so each time I do it in freestyle it feels awkward. Wish I could figure it out…
• First Move Barrier. Classic Intermediate move. On the way out of the FM, keep LH low and lead girl into it on her way out to block the exit. LH moves forward, RH is guiding from the hip. Pull back and round to prepare for a CW spin. In the routine we just use the exit of this move as the exit from the previous move. Don’t really like this move, but I’m prepared to experiment on blocked exits to moves some more…
• Almost Pretzel Block. Straight into a pretzel signal, but take hand away. Keep LH low to stop the girl running away as you turn CW to put yourself into a nelson and are almost facing your partner. Offer RH high in front of girl and lead her to step forward by pulling on the LH. She should connect L to your R and step under your R arm, as you let go L and turn CW to face her. She should have turned ACW to face. You now have a R-L handhold! I quite like this move, except by this point I was getting a bit dizzy!
• Can’t remember the name, but it’s basically a left-handed (mirrored) in-place shoulder drop. Start with a left-handed CW turn (i.e., a return in mirror land.) As she comes round to face turn CW yourself, dropping her hand over your L shoulder and letting if fall off as you continue round to go R-R. Straight into catapult. I never felt I had the timing right for this. Always wanted to do the CW turn in two beats, plus going straight into the catapult wasn’t so easy. Often I’d have stepped back off my turn but the girl hadn’t as I had lost the connection during my turn. At least, I think that was the problem…

The lack of returns through the whole routine always seemed to leave me or my partner wrong-footed for the next move. Not quite sure what was going on…

Anyway, I’ve written enough for now… See you later… Cheers!