Dances: Nightclub 2-step, Waltz, Tango, Viennese, Foxtrot, Quickstep
Hovers: 1
After the customary chest/shoulders Tuesday workout, Jeff and I met up in the practice room and got to work on our nightclub 2-step. For some reason the room was cold last night, or at least I was cold in there, and that never happens! It's usually warm and sweaty and gross, but last night was quite different. Anyways, after attempting the figure we were working on last Wednesday multiple times and getting really frustrated, Jeff finally got the hand switch business figured out, and we successfully danced the new figure multiple times, perhaps to the ad nauseum degree. Jeff just really wanted to make sure he had it. It's a tricky one for him as a lead all around, and for the follow, it's critical that she does not try to assist at all, but stay as loose and pliable as possible so that the lead and do the crazy weaving arms thing. The only part where I assist is a little is in the arm drape over the head bit piece, as it helps if I give Jeff a little extra room and try to do it a bit more gracefully. In the end though, we had it down. Score one for us!
Then it was on to our focused dance; quickstep once again. We started with this instead of the round because the music was in use when we started practice. The section in question was the running right turn that follows the rumba crosses; I'm supposed to have a heel turn there, but I seldom feel that I can even do one there, and when I do it's totally forced, and even then, I often slide the foot forward and cheat. We mostly just worked through it slowly a bunch of times, and we nailed the heel turn bit a few times. Every since Jeff complained about my not coming with him coming out of the closed impetus, that section has been much better, since I realized I really do have more space to come forward in that part than I thought, and it makes the part that comes after much smoother and more together as well. Our quickstep, while still our worst dance, has definitely improved a bit lately with our more focused practice.
Our competition video round came next. We're definitely getting better with the endurance aspect of it, and over all, we danced this one fairly well. I think our foxtrot is coming back to us too, which is good. About halfway through the Viennese, I felt Jeff's hand tense up on my back, so I thought that meant I was falling away from him, so I tried to shift my shoulder blade more into his hand and just come forward a bit, but apparently that didn't help matters, because he told me to stop wiggling. It's funny how the smallest movements can make such a huge difference in feeling for one's partner...any observer would not have seen me "wiggling" for sure, but I can understand how that's what Jeff felt. Another fumble was when I stepped full on Jeff's foot in the fallaway-reverse-slip-pivot in waltz, this time trying not to drive so hard and over shoot Jeff, and instead drastically undercutting it and landing on his foot! He carried on with the dance manfully, however, but I know it must have hurt because I'm pretty sure I landed on his toes.
We ended practice with a little foxtrot lead and follow. I keep forgetting that it's lead and follow until we start dancing, but I take it as a good sign that the fact that it deviates away from our routine hasn't messed me up yet...except this time Jeff tried to do a half waltz box, which I interpreted as a curved feather somehow, I think because I never close my feet like that in foxtrot. The foxtrot ended our practice for the night.
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