Dances: Waltz, Tango, Nightclub 2-step, Cha-cha, Rumba, West Coast Swing, Polka!, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Salsa
Hovers: 2
It's gotten to the point with the insanity workouts that my muscles are done before my cardio endurance gives out, which is the opposite of what used to happen for me. Not sure whether that's good, but at least my endurance is improving even if my joints are begging for mercy. Anyways, I wasn't going to let any of that stop me from dancing Friday night...Jeff was going too, so it was off to the Friday night dance party to see how we could dance on jelly legs. The insanity workout bit is the "worst of times" part of this post. I just wanted to get that over with.
It turns out we did okay. I did trip up pretty dramatically in one section of the waltz where I could have sworn I was led inside partner but apparently that wasn't the intent, and because my muscles were so tired I lost my balance pretty badly, but other than that, we did okay. My neck and upper back were really tight though, but that was because I had been trying to do push ups beforehand, key word being "trying." Jeff and I danced a really slow nightclub 2-step which felt really nice, I thought, very together and musical...as well as a waltz, foxtrot, tango, and Viennese. I actually thought the tango felt more controlled and together than it often does, especially throughout the trickiest section. I was keeping my steps more compact and beneath the body, and our connection was good.
A couple of our friends showed up to the dance who don't normally come, and it was a blast having them there. One was one of our Latin practice buddies, nicknamed "Von L" by Jeff, and he only dances Latin but was a lot of fun to dance cha-cha and rumba with. Then there was our friend Steve who competes at the pre-champ and champ level in both Latin and Standard and is just an all around accomplished dancer, also great fun to dance with. He is in a lot of the photos on Jeff's photography page; he and his partner are that gorgeous dark haired young couple. Anyhow, Steve and I tried to lap Jeff and his partner for an out of the blue polka (and Jeff got mad because we accused him of cheating because he didn't stay in frame). We also danced a jive, which I almost never dance because, well, no one knows how to dance it! That was kind of a challenge after doing "power jacks" all week, but still great fun. Jeff made sure to denote the figures with the goofy names by yelling out "Mooch!" and "Miami Special!" whenever we threatened to dance them.
Afterwards, a group of six or seven of us went out for happy hour and spent the next hour or two laughing and recalling a number of crazy stories from the dance competitions and dance related trips various members of the group had taken over the past few years. Good times.
Given some recent developments in our dancing lives, our practices for the next couple of months will likely be more scattered and less consistent. I'd like for Jeff to be the one to introduce the story on that since he's been involved for quite some time in a very exciting project that is going be a wonderful thing for the dance community here. People ask us all the time why we're not competing yet...and, as much as I'd like to, Jeff does have a pretty valid reason. I think we've all been learning a lot about the value of patience and hard work in the last year, and finally, we're going to begin seeing it come to fruition. A lot of unknowns lie ahead still, and even more work, but I'm really looking forward to this year.
And in 45 minutes, more Insanity. Shoot me now!
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