Hyperreal

JJ’s last night… got there early-ish for a change, near the end of the beginners’ class.

Wow the place was packed!

Maybe it’s because all the universities and colleges are now back, summer’s over, and now more people want to dance the cold dark nights away!

Who knows… But the beginners’ class was massive. It’d have been difficult to get more than a few more couples on the floor. I wonder what it’ll be like in two week’s time…

I’ll talk about the freestyles in a mo, but let’s have a quick look at the intermediate class…

• First move man’s comb. Regular first move, but turn CW and duck under your arm into an almost comb as you lead the girl back out, the comb coming out as you continue to turn.
• Shoulder sway. Could also call this a right-handed neck-break. Funny how many girls think they’re going into a catapult or similar when I lead this move…
• To join those moves we had to go back and add a windmilly/arm-wrappy thing with your right arm at the end of the comb of the first move to get from the left hand onto the right hand.
• Cleaver. slow and sexy or fast and sexy…
• Basket pull.

I liked the first-move comb, and I sometimes do the next two moves we did. Don’t often do basket pulls, but I have nothing against them in principle. Good set of moves. I wonder if there was a theme to the moves tonight, or did that get lost in the general hilarity of it all…

One thing that struck me both from this class, and from watching the end of the beginners’ class was just how much of an entertainer our teacher is. It takes a lot more than being a good dancer to be a good teacher, and something more to be a great one.

During both classes it was announced that the Wednesday night at the GUU would be closing in two week’s time. I’m a bit sad about this… I’ve already written something about this on the forum here… Go read that now if you haven’t before – I’ll wait here for you…

Done? cool!

Don’t really have much to add to that… In part, I feel a bit like “part of the problem”. The venue is less that 10 minutes’ walk from my door, but I haven’t been in a while, and when I do, it’s usually only for the freestyle. I’m keen though for it to come back in a form I want to go to, rather than feel obligated to go to.

No doubt I’ll have more thoughts on this matter and will update all my readers next week after I go to the last class there, if not before…

Anyway, back to Tuesday night… Freestyle… Another excellent night of cool choons from my favourite DJ.

After figuring I spend too much time just dancing with the same people each week, and based on some of the discussions on the forum at present, I decided I’d have a go at dancing with a few of the newer intermediates, and some folks I sometimes wonder why I don’t dance with too often…

An interesting experiment… Can’t say I made any new “discoveries” of people I’ve been missing out on… One dance was a total disaster almost from start to end. Another had my partner bounce her hand through the whole song. I wouldn’t have minded so much if it was in time with the music…

I wonder… Maybe these people are pretty good dancers with other leaders, but have trouble with my particular style. Maybe I’m not good at leading people who are not used to dancing with me… I guess I should try this more often. Maybe then I’d get better at leading inexperienced people in my style, and also get more people used to dancing with me.

Hmm…

Anyway, I had a pretty good night, lots of fun dances and it was good to get a full night without being stopped to allow the battle of the bands to happen. Not sure when we finished… 11-ish? Was surprised that JJ’s wasn’t open to the public after us, now that all the students are back…

Oh, there was a girl there taking photographs during the classes and freestyles. I wonder what her purpose was, and whether we’ll see any of the photos…

So, next dancing is this weekend in Dundee! Hope to see you all there. Thanks for another great night at JJ’s!