Hyperreal

It’s getting harder to put original titles on these posts…

Was at JJ’s tonight. Quite a good night.

I was quite tired, and stuff – overall not at my best.

Had lots of good dances, but felt my dancing was getting a bit flat. Same stuff, again and again. Same mistakes, again and again…

Maybe I just needed more good dances to make me feel better.

Part of my tiredness I guess was because I arrived in time to do more of the beginner’s class, it was quite a long night compared with what I’m used to recently mid-week.

The intermediate class was both good, and tricky…

• Shoulder drop yo-yo. Pretty obvious how this works, though from the “out” bit we did a complete turn before the block, with the path of the turn and block forming a simple “Q” shape, so we don’t unbalance our follower.
• Cleaver – can’t remember if it was CW or ACW, or was it LH or RH??? – from the turn of the yoyo, offer LH above for L-L hold, return the lady and split and over the heads for a cleaver. Wee wiggle bit, and pull in and step apart.
• Short back-hander. Really don’t like this move.
• Spin thing to get back to R-R.

Sorry for the lack of comprehensive descriptions. Too tired.

There was an overall theme of halos and leading smooth entrances and exits from them to avoid unbalancing your partner.

I think I am getting to the position where I might actually be able to remember to do clever things off a return rather than step back, so that shoulder drop yo-yo is quite a clever move. Likewise, the cleaver is often done from out of a return…

I am no good at the back-hander. Ignoring the fact that my arms just aren’t long enough to get round some girls’ waists without me getting much more friendly, even with the slimmest of dancer I rarely seem to be able to get the lady’s hand passed between my hands in a tidy fashion. I can get it work sometimes by letting go and hoping her hand makes it into your RH as the girl comes round, but I wouldn’t like to have to count on it in freestyle.

Anyway, need to get some sleep if I’m going to be able to dance tomorrow…

Cheers everyone!