Hyperreal

I’ve just had a brilliant night at JJ’s.

I almost didn’t go. I’m still feeling half dead from the BFG weekend (blog for that is coming – promise!), I was running late and with the rainy weather I almost decided to stay home.

But I’d promised one or two folks I’d be there, so I decided to keep to my word, and rushed out, getting there just in time for the intermediate class.

• Nelson Accordion – nice when combined with…
• Lady Comb – these two moves in combination taught me how nice combs can be. Hardly a dance goes by without me nelson-accordion-ing into a lady comb. Getting out was different though… We did a slow comb with a wee shuffle back to be facing the right way for the slot in which we are taught… The step apart – echoing stuff we had done in Franck’s workshop on Sunday – was led from a knee-to-knee connection. Found this didn’t always work so well for me though… Perhaps because I didn’t have the girl close enough (or perhaps because she didn’t want to come any closer…) On the step back, go double-handed.
• Basket Tango Twist – Normal basket, but on the way out, let go RH and turn the girl one and a half times ACW to face (you have also stepped round CW to meet.) Now face-to-face, go flat-hand on LH, and RH high on girl’s back. Twist ACW, crouching down, but keeping backs straight up-and-down. Back up, and open out into a mambo step, keeping LH high-ish and flat, and lowering RH to allow escape. On a step forward, push spin, catch R-R.
• Extended Yo-Yo – just like a normal yo-yo, but the sweep out is turned into a walk around by, first, catching girl’s hand between your fingers, and second, by only sweeping about half way out before walking… It’s important in the sweep to keep some pressure holding the girl back to preserve the connection along the fore-arm. Once bored, finish sweep out, etc… Return into accordion…

Some nice moves, though quite tricky…

Best part of the night was the freestyle though. Despite missing lots of my favourite dancers, there were plenty other beautiful dancers to dance with. I had some tremendous dances tonight.

I was especially delighted to meet and dance with a lovely girl visiting from Edinburgh. I really need to get a “drool” smiley for my blog. Good dancer, and gorgeous with it, with so much eye contact it was almost too much. Why are so many Edinburgh girls so great?

That’s not to say that Glasgow girls are all horrible, ugly dancers – not at all. But to meet and dance with someone and get such an immediate connection is quite a phenomenon. I’m looking forward to seeing her again, though I don’t know when that’ll be…

Anyway, as I was saying, I had some fabulous dances with lots of other girls, so all those workshops and dances over the weekend must have done something for me.

I was told by someone I respect greatly that they’d been watching me dancing with one of my favourite dancers, and thought we were dancing “really good” – or was it even “really great”? No matter, I felt really great about that.

So, generally feeling pretty good about my standard of dancing at the moment… Looking forward to tomorrow already!

Cheers everyone!

(PS> Got bashed on the nose again by the same random girl as last time… Not as bad this time though…)