Hyperreal

I’ve just spent the weekend in Weston-super-Mare, at the Big Bang!

This is a smaller one and a half day event organised by the same people as do the Southport weekenders.

I had a fabulous time!

Two great nights of dancing until 2.30am, a great set of DJs, some rather good workshops, and a fantastic collection of dancers. What could possibly be better? I’ll tell you – all that with lots of forum friends there too!

It was really good to see so many folks from all over – it’d have been difficult travelling so far without knowing anyone otherwise.

There’s a few who helped make the weekend especially good – one especially. Looking forward to seeing you all in Southport.

(I also know I managed to miss a few people I wanted to dance with last night – hope to catch up with you soon. )

I’ll add a fuller write-up below, but a quick review of the workshops I went to…

I did all 3 of Paul & Cat’s WCS workshops – I thought they were very good. Nicely pitched at a mostly inexperienced audience, but plenty for even those who know a thing or two to pick up on.

I also did Jango pt.1, which I really enjoyed – but missed the second to do the “Up Close and Personal” workshop. That was lots of fun.

If I have one complaint it’s that there’s not enough hours in the day to do all the workshops, have lunch and dinner and get to the dance in the evening at anywhere near 8pm. Please John & Wes – can we have the next Big Bang on a day with maybe 28 hours.

Couple of other things… I thought the cabaret performances were really good. But it’s a shame there’s not going to be a DVD of the workshops and performances. I noticed people making personal recordings through the day. If I’d know that there wasn’t going to be a DVD and recording would be allowed, I’d have brought my video camera.

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I travelled down to WSM by train, only slightly delayed, and got in to my hotel for around 7-ish, maybe a little later as I had a wee wander round town to make sure I knew where I was going and also stopped for food on the way… Despite thunderstorms being forecast for both Friday and Saturday night, Friday evening was warm and pleasant.

I guess I arrived back down for the dance at about quarter to 9… We were in one of the side rooms, rather than the ballroom (actually half of a side room.) Not a bad floor, but not a atmosphere you’d write home about – the room was basically just a big box, with just what’s needed and no more.

It was still quiet, but already the room was quite warm. There were a couple of big canteens of cold(-ish) water supplied for us for free though, which was just as well, as £2.80 for a pint of orange with lemonade would have left me broke fairly quickly.

As the room got busier the heat became unbearable – I could only dance a couple of dances before having to escape outside to cool off. But I learnt that the air-conditioning hadn’t been turned on, and one it had been the room cooled down significantly, and it was only the need to rest and recover that meant I didn’t dance continuously – the music was good, and I was disappointed that I missed dancing to so many good tunes while taking breaks.

I found I had to leave the room if I needed a rest as if I just stood at the side for more than a moment I tended to get asked – by people both known and unknown to me. It was a pleasant surprise though, and not such a hardship.

Of course, when you get asked rather than doing the asking, you lose the ability to pick the dancers you’ve been watching and really want to dance with… But pretty much all my dances were really good. Occasionally I found it difficult to adjust to the particular style my partner for that moment brought – often though they were able to adapt their style to me, which is even better.

Meanwhile, I’d met lots of old forum friends and friends of theirs. Was good to see everyone again. Was especially good to see one girl who I seem to dance so much better with than anyone else I have ever danced with. She’s a lovely dancer, a lovely person, and I love to dance with her. Shame she lives so far, far away…

So, lots of good dances… As far as the music is concerned, I was a bit concerned about the relatively high concentration of swing music early on but that seemed to pass, then a bit later in the heat I thought it was a bit too fast, but as the night went on, I thought the music just got better and better. Not going to full-on blues, but still quite chilled late on.

Somehow I survived through to 2:30am, but didn’t hang around long before I wandered back to my hotel, most of the way in the company of a few friends, before having to wake the hotel proprietor to open the door for me. That’s the way he ran his hotel though, and so I’m not going to feel guilty about it. In fact it was a nice hotel, and they owners clearly cared about their guests.

Think a few folks went for a drink after. I’d have loved to have gone – I didn’t get to socialise with people as much as I’d have liked. Next time I’ll stay in a hotel that I don’t have to wake the owner to get into, and will allow myself to miss some of the early workshops. (Actually, “next time” is Southport, and I guess I’ll be dancing all night again…)

Saturday was the workshops and the main dance… Was up early to make sure I got a good breakfast before heading off to the venue…

Workshops…

First up was Jango with Amir & Cat… A lot of this I’d done before… Reverse ochos was a significant feature. I guess I’m getting better at this as one girl told me I’d been the only guy she actually felt she was being led by. We did a foot sandwich thing which I hadn’t done before (I believe this was part of the Stirling workshops I missed.) Rather neat, though the shoe-shine the girls then had to do was a bit too near to a knee in the groin…

If Scotland had regular workshops on Jango I think I’d feel more motivated to learn it, as I really like a lot of the stuff I’ve been taught and have seen, though it is rather difficult.

Next was West Coast Swing with Paul & Cat… This taught the four basic 6-beat patterns. I found this a very good class. One thing I noticed from this class, but I realise that it’s common to most non-ceroc teaching, is that they show the footwork for the guys, then the footwork for the girls, and only then do they show you how it all works.

I don’t think I like this. In Ceroc they show you where both dancers bodies are in relation to each other and then if there is footwork, if then gets demonstrated – sometimes together, sometimes separately.

I find that often the movement shown in the footwork doesn’t match up with the movement with a partner. Subtleties are missed, and it can be difficult to work out how the footwork you’ve just been taught matches up with the movement and leading you’re then meant to do. (I’ll talk about this more in a later blog article I’m writing at the same time as this one.)

After all that, I decided I could miss the next set of workshops and get lunch. Although there was a break of half an hour between each workshop, I didn’t think was enough to get lunch and get back for a workshop… Perhaps a break of an hour around lunch-time would be better. After I’d had lunch I watched some of the baby aerials workshop. Very entertaining – especially the girl doing the hand-stand move wearing a wee short skirt.

Next up was the second in the WCS series… Where in the first workshop we had learnt four basic patterns, we now got to fix the thing I had found a problem – tension and compression. It’s hard to lead floppy arms. This made a big difference. Felt much more like dancing rather than stepping around… Lots more good stuff. We finished with an intro to the whip, but we’d do more of it in the next WCS workshop.

During the break I had a go at leading some of the other beginners there, doing both the moves we’d learnt that day, but also throwing in one or two I’d leant before. Very mixed results. The baskets I was trying to do usually didn’t go right. I’m not sure though if it was me not leading them well or the inexperience of the dancers I was with…

Next up I decided to miss Jango part 2 and instead do the “Up Close & Personal” workshop with a girl I always like to get UC&P with. This workshop was given by Roy & Yuko (Roy doing most of the teaching, but Yuko having a fair amount to contribute herself.) I really enjoyed this workshop, though I was hoping it might be a little more “UC&P” than it actually was… Still there was some nice sexy moves, including a rather nice chin-led turn, a lean that I’ve since found impossible to lead, and a rather weird and not at all sexy “bish, bash, bosh” kick thing that the girls did.

I particularly liked the chin-turn which started with a comb. After it you were mean to step back, step in and put the girl’s hand on your chest for her then to push you away. I found that if instead on the step back you instead stepped in to kiss the girl while you held her chin, you’d get the same push away anyway.

Last workshop of the day was the final WCS workshop… I little more tricky, and I was exhausted. I’d have given up half-way, except that I was in the line-up, and I didn’t want to upset any of the women moving round by dropping out. We started where we left of with the whip, then some whip variations. Also did some variations of the basic moves leading with the other hand, or in one variation – no hands! Again, lots of good tips and stuff, but I can’t say I was at my best to take it all in.

Once it was over I managed to arrange to grab some dinner with a friend. Good to get some time with her and we had a good laugh. Even though the freestyle started at 8 o’clock, I don’t think we made it there until about 10-ish… But it’s not just the dancing we go to these events for, is it?

There were two rooms – mainstream in the ballroom, and blues in the room that we’d had for the freestyle on Friday.

In comparison to the other room, the main ballroom had bags of atmosphere. Fantastic place to dance. The floor was good, though again, nothing out of the ordinary. A fair chunk of the floor had been taken up by tables and chairs, but there was still plenty of space to dance.

Not very long after we arrived we had the cabaret acts – some of the teachers from during the day had a few flashy routines, plus one of the classes for the day had taught some of the punters a couple of wee routines. The stand-out performance for me was Adam and Tas. They were spectacular. I was gobsmacked.

As the night wore on, I succumbed to tiredness from lack of sleep and doing the workshops during the day. While I didn’t leave early, I spent quite a fair portion of the last hour or two sitting and watching. While I could maybe have managed more blues dancing, there were only really a couple of dancers there that I’d want to lose myself in that sort of dance with.

At times I felt my brain had stopped and I lacked inspiration, but at other times, with the right partner and the right music (played by a fab DJ) things just came together so well.

There were some dances I just never wanted to end. Most of them were with the girl I mentioned earlier who makes me feel my dancing is so much better than it actually is, but I also had some fab dances with other friends.

And then the worse part of the weekend – the end. So many folks I was sorry to be saying good-bye to – even though I’ll see most of them in Southport in a few weeks…

Wish the south of England wasn’t so far away!

I had a brilliant time, met lots of lovely people who are also great dancers, and generally had a ball.

Can’t recommend WSM and the Big Bang highly enough. Hope to be back for the next one!

Thanks John, Wes, all the DJ’s, all the dancers, and all my friends.