Dances: Nightclub 2-step, Waltz, Tango, Viennese, Foxtrot, Quickstep
Hovers: 1
Jeff opened up the practice plan on Friday night, and his face fell. "Quickstep? Rumba crosses? On a Friday? &%*$, Sarah!" We had talked at the beginning of the week about how we needed to really focus on quickstep for a while, and as a consequence I had put down quickstep as our focused dance for 3 out of 5 days this week, and since we weren't going out for the usual social dancing this Friday, I had left the practice plan in standard format. Jeff was not amused.
All the same, after our competition round, we started to dance through them a few times. As a follow, I'm struggling with that tough balance in those fast moving and rotating figures between not initiating the movements but also pulling my own weight and helping the momentum. Either Jeff feels that I'm causing the movement or rotation, or else I'm at a dead stand still. I think I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and remember the analogy I heard often when I was just starting to dance, how the woman is like something that has been set in motion, and she keeps going until she is clearly directed otherwise, so that once in motion, the lead is required to stop the motion, rather than to continue it. I think my problem was that because I've told I rush, I was trying to wait for each movement to be led...but that results in choppy dancing and much more work for the lead. I actually wasn't thinking about any of these things as I was dancing...just trying to be more patient, but I think it was backfiring, and now that I think about it I think that I at least know what the problem is. Actually, when we danced our round, I felt our tipsies came out pretty well, pretty well for us, anyhow, and I think it's a good example of a place where I just go with plenty of energy in one direction until he changes the trajectory, and then I do the same, and so on. That gives us plenty of momentum and can be a little hair raising at the same time, because if he doesn't redirect me in time...we're toast. Same is true if I try to lead the turn myself, but I don't think that's been a problem in the tipsies so much.
In any case, I also found myself crashing into Jeff's knee after the feet cross in the rumba cross, and I thought it might have to do with alignment, though Jeff thought it might be because I was too early or late. I changed something with the alignment, and it worked out much better. Actually, now that I think about it, I want to analyze that figure more closely next time to see why I'm supposed to cross my feet. It doesn't feel natural and like I'm being led to do it, and I wonder what it is about the ending body position that requires it. I often fail to cross them because if I did I'd lose my balance, so something about my positioning (or our positioning) is off, I think.
We were both tired since it was the end of the week practice, so after dancing a rumba cross that came out passably, it was time to call it a night.
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