Hyperreal

Over the weekend I was up in Aberdeen, for the Beach Ballroom weekend, with workshops with Amir.

Despite never having finished writing up the last set of Amir workshops I went on, I’m determined to get this last weekend written up and posted a.s.a.p!

I’m going to use the same sort of format I used for the BFG – get the generalities out of the way first, then go into more detail about the weekend after, with it probably getting less and less interesting as I go on and on… Even if you don’t read it all, you’re still allowed to leave a comment.

So a big thanks to Amir for his classes, Lisa for being a fab demo, Franck & Sheena for running the show and their hospitality, and anyone else involved in making it really fun weekend.

These weekends draw some of the best dancers from all over Scotland and even further afield… And the dances I had were all fab. There’s a few dancers from the Aberdeen and Dundee area that I especially enjoy dancing with, and I had some lovely dances with them – I’m not going to mention names of course, but I’m going to think about them for a moment and we’ll see if they pick up the positive vibes I’m transmitting….

Thank you.

Also enjoying dancing with some of the folks from both Brechin and Inverness – really must get a visit to Brechin sometime this year…

Thanks to everyone in Aberdeen who provide such a welcome. You’re the best!

Last thanks go to the Glasgow folks and other friends from around Scotland who were good company when I might otherwise have been on my lonesome.

Cheers!

(OK, so that’s the luvvie stuff done with… Now going to talk a bit about the weekend’s activities, finishing up by going over the workshops in a little more detail…)

Around the time of my last set of Amir Beach Ballroom workshops I was told my dancing had changed – partly this I think was just happening around that time, but I still think that those workshops (and that weekend generally) gave my dancing a big step up – even if much of the Jango content didn’t stick.

I’ve no idea if this weekend will do the same for me… I fear that again I will forget much of the Jango stuff as I have few people to practice in Glasgow, and it does tend to take me longer to get things into my head enough to use them in freestyle.

But if I go to the next weekend in Stirling in July, maybe that’ll help…

Anyway, I enjoyed all the workshops - especially the ones on Sunday, despite being rather tired from the night before…

The party on Saturday was very good – though I got off to a bad start and it took me a while to get “in the zone”. I spent a lot of the night away from the “clique” side of the room, dancing with people I’ve never danced with or don’t dance with very often. I’m not sure how much of a conscious decision this was, but I can think of a few possible reasons why I did this…

• As I wasn’t feeling very confident in my dancing, I might have figured that it would be better to dance more with people I didn’t know, and not disappoint those I did.
• Recent discussions on the forum, some sparked by my blog, has made me think about how I choose who I dance with. I think I mainly dance with people I know – forum folks, their friends, etc. – the sort of people that some people might label as a clique, even though they are very inclusive.
• The floor on the other side wasn’t so busy, so I could get more space to dance.

Anyway, as the night went on, I found more and more rather good dancers and it raised my spirits and my confidence and I danced more with friends (who had been complaining I was being anti-social!) My main disappointment was that when the music ended at 1 am, I hadn’t managed to dance with everyone I had wanted to.

I managed to make up for that a little on Sunday by dancing with as many people as possible at the workshops whom I’d missed at the party, but even then, I think I missed one or two…

I’d forgotten how hot and crowded the floor can get. The ice-cream supplied by Franck was much appreciated.

Even when not dancing, there were some fun times… On Saturday evening loads of us went to visit a friendly Norse Goddess who fed us those cool biscuits my Granny used to give us, and pizza. Met lots of locals (and not-so locals) there, just sorry we had to leave early to get ready for the real party…

After the pre-party party and the party-party, there was the after-party party… But the pre-after-party party entertainment was watching a number of mad folks go paddling in the North Sea – total nutters!

The after-party was a much more relaxed, sophisticated affair, with champagne and snacks. Not all the conversation was so sophisticated though!

Left there about quarter-past 4 to get back to the hotel and in bed for about quarter to 5… To be up 4 hours later to get ready, have breakfast, check out and get to the Sunday venue…

I’m sure we looked a bit like something out of “Dawn of the Dead” – or even “Shawn of the Dead”.

On Sunday evening, while everyone else went off to play before the party in the evening, I sneaked off and caught a train home… Seems that I missed a great chilled-out party too!

I’ve never done a Sunday party on a BB weekend – next time I must stay for another night and get the full Aberdeen experience.

It was a long weekend though… Very tired today, and pretty sore too.

(Smooth segue into talking about the workshop coming up…)

The weekend started for me on Saturday morning, being woken at 6 am to get up and get ready to catch a train at 7:42 am! That’s earlier than I’m up most days!

Despite being a bit rushed, I got there in good time and had a pleasant journey up to Aberdeen in the company of a Random Redhead I found wandering around the station looking a bit too lively considering the early hour.

The first day’s workshops were in the Douglas Hotel, not so far from the station and the timing of the trains meant I got there in plenty of time. (If the first workshop had started at 11:30 am, as it did on Sunday, it’d mean I’d have got an extra hour in bed…)

Anyway, I’m not going to describe the contents of the workshops in any great detail, but instead point to this page on the forum. I hope to post a more detailed technical analysis of my experience of these workshops on that thread…

The first workshop “Jango 1″ was primarily concerned with different steps in a closed position. Ironic though that the move with the nicest feel was the non-Jango sway-comb, though now I think about it, maybe that’s really only because it was in my “comfort zone” – almost all the real Jango stuff was, as I said, in a closed hold, with a full two-handed frame. Holding a rigid frame and leading from the chest/body/centre/frame (I can’t remember how Amir described it, but I think I’ve heard the tango lead described using all these terms) can be both physically tiring, and mentally exhausting as you need to concentrate so much harder.

The second workshop in the afternoon more-or-less followed straight on from the first one, concentrating even more on the frame. We did lots of forward and back ochos – I found the step to get from the closed position into doing ochos rather difficult. The ochos themselves were fairly easy in comparison. But to make it harder we did a “planeo” move where you half-lead the step out of the ocho, lead the girl down into a slight crouch, and then walk her around on the spot, with her extended leg tracing a circle.

Now onto the second set of workshops on Sunday…

So, next up was “Displacements and Falls” – which were sacadas and volcadas. The sacada is where the guys steps sort-of through between the legs of the girl as she takes a step back displacing her forward leg so that it does one of those fancy Tango kick things. These things are dead, dead tricky! It’s very difficult getting the timing right, the step right, and making sure you don’t attempt to actually step into the girl, or affect her balance by disrupting the frame.

The volcadas were rather nice, and in comparison, much easier! Here you go from a first-move open position, bring the girl to facing across your body, step forward so she side-steps, lift her slightly and then step out to the left to lean her over. You get your right leg out of the way as she traces a nice wee circle with her left foot (it didn’t have any weight on it after the side-step) – the outward then inward path of the circle matches the lean so that the girls foot is more-or-less under her nose as she is leant in and out. Once you’ve got her back upright, take a couple of steps (west Manhattan style???) and then a side-step, before stepping her out to go back to more MJ-style moves…

I liked that workshop a lot.

The last workshop was a lot of fun too, doing the start of a cool wee routine to “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps…”. As well as Jango, it had a MJ and a WCS feel to it. By that time though I was suffering from brain-overload and lack of sleep, and although I could do all the moves individually fairly well, I had real problems when we put it all together.

The only other taught part of the weekend (that I did) was the fun class at the Beach Ballroom. The only new thing there was the “leg posey thing” that we repeated in the Perhaps… routine. Unfortunately several people got maimed just the first time we did this move – I got a bashed ankle courtesy of the heel of the girl in the next couple down the row…

I think the BB gets a bit too crowded during the classes – next time if it’s anything the same, I’m going to sit out.

Talking of crowded, I think that although 20 couples is a good number for a workshop, the dance-floor at the Douglas Hotel is just a bit too small when the teacher needs to teach from the centre of the floor.

On Sunday the workshops were in the Northern Hotel, which apart from being a bit far away from the centre of town was much better, though the shape of the floor meant that when we were doing the routine in rows, one of the rows was too crowded, another just about right, and the third very generously spaced.

Oh, some people found the floors at both venues a little un-slippy, but I didn’t have any major problems… In fact, once the Northern Hotel floor had been talced, I managed an entire dance in my normal trainers without realising it!

Oh, while I remember, I should have a video of Amir’s summary at the end of workshops. Let me know if you want a copy… (Attendees Only!)

Despite having a camera with me, that was the only time I remembered to get it out of my bag to use it. Oh well…

Um, OK, I think I’ve now said everything I was going to.

Hope to see you all again soon.

Thanks for reading all the way to here.

Shame on you if you’ve just skipped forward and are reading the last sentence to see if there’s anything worth reading down at the bottom…