Dances: Nightclub 2-step, Waltz, Tango, Viennese, Foxtrot, Quickstep
Hovers: 1
Thursday night's practice began with the usual warm up and round, which we had ended up skipping on Wednesday. We continue to improve stamina-wise. Not sure about how the dancing looks though...sometimes it doesn't feel pretty, so I guess we'll have to film ourselves again sometime soon to get an idea. Dancing was a little treacherous as well in a certain corner of the floor; it was sooo slippery that we've very nearly wiped out there on several occasions. I'm seriously tempted to take some castor oil directly to the floor.
Practice itself was fairly brief; we focused on tango, the back open promenade piece. I feel like we haven't been consistent about when the rotation happens versus when we keep it straight, and how that fits in with the step alignments. We went through it a few times slowly and had a better feel for it by the end. The key seems to be that Jeff rotates around me on the first half and checks, and then I rotate on the next step to complete the motion. As Jeff commented on this practice, it seemed like one of those figures that feels pretty bad most of the time when we dance through the routine, but then when we go to practice it, it isn't so bad after all. I suggested that it could be what precedes or follows the figure in the routine that is throwing us off, but he reminded me that they are the simplest figures, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. Perhaps it's just a matter of focus; the correct technique on these steps is not habitual yet, and when the focus is trying to get through the routine alive and with some semblance of togetherness, we forget the little things that make some of these pieces work. I'd say the rumba cross in quickstep is similar in that respect.
I think we ended with waltz; sadly, I don't remember for sure.
A quick note of thanks to our faithful readers: Our blog has now topped 5,000 page views and 222 posts! I don't think we realized when we came up with this idea back in May that we'd build this kind of connection with other dancers and enthusiasts here in our community and world beyond it. In the beginning we started this mostly just for ourselves, but thought it would be fun if others also wanted to share our journey, as it were. We've been happy that this has proved to be the case, and speaking for myself, the support has often provided me with that little extra kick of motivation that we all need sometimes. Thank you again; hopefully this is only the beginning!
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