Twisted Contra-Checks

Part: Follow
Dances: Viennese Waltz
Hovers: 1

Practice was very short last night. It was leg day for Jeff, and I think he might have pushed himself a little too hard, because he was having a tough time dancing at all because of it. I hardly did a workout at all myself because I had resolved that last night would be the night I would bake a fresh blackberry pie. It was just one of those things I had to do before summer is over. I'm sure Jeff didn't mind too terribly...he likes pie crust too much.

Our practice began with a night club 2-step warm up, and our Latin dancer friend laughing at us for "warming up" with that dance because it is one of the most lazy and easy dances to do. We tried to explain that it's about just getting moving together and getting a feel for where you are and where your partner is and your balance, etc...but he just didn't get it. Jeff was experimenting with a few new figures too...he's invented some fun ones and stolen some figures from our other standard dances that work pretty well, and I really like the new shadow position one that reminds me of smooth Viennese waltz. We've pretty much decided that we're going to enter the open night club 2-step event at our first competition, just for fun.

Since Jeff's legs were precluding any slow practice, we decided to see if we could get any closer on the fleckerls. We can actually get through them alright, but then for some reason Jeff kept doing 3 half reverses and then trying to put me into a contra-check and almost killing me because my feet are completely crossed the wrong direction at that point. I'd like to see him try to contra-check starting with a right leg crossed in front of the left! We had a good laugh over it though, because he kept swearing that he was doing it right and that he was only doing six counts, yet when he went to demonstrate...the same thing happened, 3 halves, 9 counts, no go contra-check! I got a kick out the fact that he thought I was rushing so much that I got a whole 3 beats ahead of him in that space of time...but the scary part was that I almost believed him...I really can be an out-of-control merry-go-round with those things. Jeff decided that we should invent a new kind of contra-check in which the lady keeps the feet crossed in front of her just bends backwards. No one else will be dancing it, that's for sure! Our contra-check, when we were positioned correctly going into it, was still iffy and we'll need to work on it. It's really tough because of how you're interrupting rotation and then have to rotate the opposite way. We didn't spend too much time on this though, because Jeff's leg workout had really done him in for the night. We ended with a slow waltz and good hover, and called it a night.