Hyperreal

Just a quick post about my visit to the GUU last Wednesday…

Considering that I’d decided to reduce my visits to the GUU, I seem to be going there much more than intended… Glad I did though as I had a pretty good night.

I only went for the freestyle – thought I was turning up quite late and was surprised to find the intermediate class was still on…

At first I thought it wasn’t going to be a great night, I could only see a few folks I especially wanted to dance with, but the dances I had with them, plus the ones with others I maybe hadn’t danced with for a while were all pretty good.

(When I say “a few folks I especially wanted to dance with” I don’t mean that I didn’t want to dance with the rest (ok, maybe one or two of them) but people that I’d feel especially bad at missing a chance to dance with. I’ll pretty much dance with anyone who asks me.)

I danced with one girl who I hadn’t seen before, and from watching and dancing with her, you could tell she was a beginner. That said, she was very good at following my lead and doing the various weird things I like to do – much better than the average beginner who I find hard to lead into anything other than beginner moves. Thus I figured she’d maybe been dancing for at least month or two.

I asked her, and was surprised to find out this was her first class! OK, that gives a false impression… She’d done a couple of Ceroc workshops somewhere (presumably small intro classes at other events, rather than full beginner workshops) and had done a fair amount of other dancing – Scottish Country Dancing. Based on my experience of ceilidh dancing and other Scottish Country Dancers I’ve come across (and/or been told about) I didn’t realise they would have so much lead or follow skills – their dances (afaik) are 100% choreographed, and so both partners should know where they should be and what they should be doing without much need for lead and follow.

Anyway, assuming she is able to, and sticks with Ceroc, she could be a really good dancer. Hope to get another change to dance with her.

The other thing of note was this was the last night there for one of the taxis before she left (today - Sunday, I think) for a while in Australia. Hope she enjoys her trip and is able to come back soon – I’ll be missing her cakes.