Lesson #14

Dance:  Foxtrot
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Mowed lawn at home.  Chest and shoulders at the gym.
Non-Glamorous Chore of the Day:  Dog Poop Duty
Happy Hour:  The Matador - Hot Wings & Calamari

Well lesson #14 proved to be an one of the more interesting lesson I've had in my life.  Sarah and I had decided to have Kora work with us on Foxtrot and after dancing roughly half of the routine, she had us stop and the work began.

Good news first.  Kora really approved of our Feather Step.  This really surprised me for a few reasons.  One; I don't really ever feel like I get enough upper body rotation to do it correctly and feel like I always end up cheating to do it right.  Two;  Every Standard dancer knows the Feather Step is the "Million Dollar" step.  Could it really be that easy to fix and get relatively right in such a short amount of time?  Maybe Simeon's Compliment Sandwich technique finally rubbed off on Kora.  Nevertheless, I was glad that our hard work was paying off.

Now for the bad news.  Apparently our Feather Step, while good, has a tendency to curve right instead of staying in a straight line.  This was really surprising news since I make it a specific point to dance it straight and it was the first time I've heard about it curving.  Feather Step aside, Kora really got on me about my form.  Apparently I don't suck in my stomach hard far enough (or I guess you could say I arch my back too much) and I don't keep my butt under me enough as well.  So for most of the lesson she was prodding me with a 2x4 someone had, to my misfortune, left in the room.  It's really weird for me to dance with my connection level to my partner so low.  Right around the hips.  It really made things more difficult especially when driving hard.  But with practice I'm sure it'll solve itself.

One really annoying thing about that lesson was when Kora informed me that my footwork going into the Bounce Fallaway was wrong.  I was taking a toe lead instead of a heel lead into it.  The annoying thing being that I have danced that step the EXACT same way since day one of learning the routine and this was the first I was hearing about it.  You would think that something as obvious as that would've caught either Simeon or Kora's attention throughout the 14 lessons we've taken.  So now I need to break a really obviously bad habit that would've been a super simple fix if caught earlier.  Oh well, something had to slip through the cracks at some point.

Overall an odd lesson for the books.

After the lesson we all headed to DanceWorks for their Friday night dance.  I had a great time and danced quite a bit.  The floor was pretty crowded and since it was a small floor to begin with, I had to be extra creative with my amalgamations.  I think it's really important to go to social dances.  It gives you a chance to lead different people as well as just differently.  You don't need to maintain a perfect frame which sometimes could actually screw you more than help you depending on the situation.  It also brings me back to the main reason why I dance; the social aspect.  Because when all is said and done and I get older and the competitions end, all that's left will be the social aspect.  And I can't think of a better social sport.