Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

Dances:  Waltz, Quickstep
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Chest and shoulders at the gym, detailed a car (inside and outside), and mopped one floor.
Happy Hour:  The Parlor - Cheeseburger and Hot Wings.
Puppies Cleanly Groomed:  1

Despite being pretty wiped out from my day of doing chores (detailing the car, mopping floors in the house among other tasks), the workout today went really well.  Sarah HATES chest and shoulder day.  Mainly because she has almost no measurable strength in both those areas.  I keep telling her if she stays consistent with the workouts, it'll feel A LOT better after a month or so.  I, on the other hand, like chest and shoulder day better than the other ones.  Let's not kid ourselves, it's all hard work, but there has to be a ranking order of preference.

After the workout, we put our noses back to the grindstone.  Quickstep was the main focus again.  I think it's great we're dedicating more time for quickstep now since it's our weakest dance, mainly because it's the last one we learned, therefore our newest and most inexperienced routine.  The part specifically in question today was the second short side.  It's really not a difficult one except for the stupid Closed Impetus.  I HATE Closed Impetuses.  It's a close second to the Zig-Zag.  Only difference is that it's actually useful.  I have a tendency (and I think this is a VERY common issue) to just cheat my way through it.  Sometimes I don't even get back onto my heels.  However we ran through it slowly and I was able to concentrate not only on the heel turn, but also keeping the whole thing more compact and tightly wound.  I noticed that it helps tremendously when I keep Sarah close around me as if she was a tether ball near the end of it's rope.  Pole dancing is another good example but we won't go there.  You get the point.  My Closed Impetuses are very poor across all the dances that have them.  At least I'm consistent.  In quickstep it happens so quickly it's almost just begging me to cheat.

Waltz was the second dance we worked on.  Not surprisingly we worked on the very end of our routine which is a Closed Impetus Reverse Pivot followed by a Hover.  Sarah finally got her Hover practice in.  This Closed Impetus is usually a timing issue for us.  Either we take too much time doing the Closed Impetus and then have to rush the Reverse Pivot, or the Closed Impetus is over too quickly and we are half to one beat ahead.  Luckily, it's a good place to cheat since we have half a waltz box before we go into the Hover.  A great place to makeup or create time.  Our Hovers started out great and gradually got worse as we became more tired.  Finally we did one that was just awful and I decided it was time we call it a day.  Sarah doesn't like it when we end on a bad note, but seeing how tired we were it would've been unwise to chase after a good note today.

If any judges are reading this blog post, please do not commit it to memory.  Or better yet, just look the other way when I dance these sections.  I don't like cheating but I will if I have to.  Hopefully it won't be an issue when we start competing, but I like to keep my options open.  :)