Dances: Foxtrot, quickstep, waltz
Calorie recharge: Pineapple smoothie
That is really the question. It's really awkward to purposely step/transfer weight on the off beat, but I think slowly the body is getting trained to move on the down beat and transfer weight on the off beat; though I might just be teaching myself to just plain dance off time, which is just weird feeling. Mirko (former world champion) does it though, so we figured we can't be so far off the beaten path. (Pun not intended!) In any case, today's practice session involved more work on our metronomic foxtrot, making more progress actually applying the concepts we've been working on in isolation to our actual routine.
Jeff promised to rant more about it, so I will only touch on it, but I really struggle with the zig-zag. It makes no sense to me from a follow's perspective...in any other step I follow the lead's body and mirror his movements so that the picture fits together, but in the zig-zag I have to purposefully not match his step pattern, even when I feel that I am led to do so, and end up feeling so out of sync and awkward! Turning my head back to the left has helped a little though, as it keeps my body in a more closed position.
We also practiced a bit of quickstep; not much to talk about there except that the rumba cross continues to be hit or miss, and even when hit, a little too precarious to be comfortable.
A waltz run through ended the practice today, our parabolic waltz, as we have come to call it. Sometimes those sweeping shapes just take a nosedive and it's all over, but today it was pretty good. It's amazing how much ground you can cover when you get the power and momentum in the right places.
Our workout before practice yielded a new term: "The One Half Rule." This means that however much weight Jeff lifts, pulls, shoves, or otherwise tortures himself with, I have to do the same with one half that amount. Most of the time it is about right, but soon enough I hope to change that. Unfortunately, he might say, I've never been known to apply that rule to my dancing. Seems like it almost goes the other way...he shapes 20 degrees, I go 40! He drives 3 feet, I drive 6...well, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea. I'm not always so great about reading the amount of power and energy I'm being given, and sometimes waiting for it, shall we say. But it's all about balance, right? We'll meet each other halfway some day, and then we'll really be a force to be reckoned with. That's what the journey is all about.
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