Holiday Weekend

Dances:  Waltz, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz, Tango, Hustle, Nightclub 2-Step, Salsa, Rumba
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Chest and shoulders at the gym.

After a full week of practice, today was pretty blah.  After a good workout, Sarah and I met briefly in the practice room for some foxtrot.  I'm still trying hard at keeping my butt tucked in under me when I dance, but it's not easy.  Today was no exception.  Somehow it felt like I needed to waddle around Sarah which lead to all sorts of awkwardness.  So after a few attempts, we gave up for the day and headed over to DanceWorks for some social dancing.

It was really dead at DanceWorks tonight.  I guess everyone is out of town for the long weekend.  On the bright side, there was all sorts of room on the floor so I didn't need to hurt my brain as much as usual.  As we continue our training as competitive dancers, I'm realizing that social dancing is kind of dance stress relief for me.  For the length of the party, I don't have to worry about every little detail and dancing everything perfectly.  Instead I get to focus on other challenges like floor crafting, making up figures, and leading different people.  It's nice to break the daily routine and do something different if not really closely related.

One interesting thing that never occurred to me until last night was the level of our dancing.  As we continue our practices and get better and better, it does cause kind of a rift when we go social dancing.  The really awkward (and that's putting it nicely) receptionist at DanceWorks brought that to Sarah's attention.  You can tell from how she behaves that she's really insecure about herself and she always gives Sarah crap about how skinny and fit she is.  Tonight that happened again, and for a change of pace she decided to harass me as well.  To which I politely reminded her that she could be just as good and as fit if she actually put some energy and effort into it.  But the thing I took away from it was the potential perception that Sarah and I are out there showing off.  Of course we're just there to have a good time and dance/socialize, but I can see how it can been seen that way.  There's nothing I can really do about it, and it's not exactly a bad problem to have, but we should be careful when it comes to this.  Just interesting that it might be time for the mind games to begin...

Social Dancing: An Endorsement

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz, Night-club 2-step, Salsa, Rumba, Hustle!

Hovers: 1

Friday night was the end of a full week of practices for us, and this last practice kind of fell flat on its face. After warming up to night club 2-step, which keeps getting better, we tried to practice a little bit of foxtrot, working on keeping our lower connection. Somehow Jeff's position in an exaggerated attempt at this ended up like tango or something it felt really strange when we tried to dance the bounce fallaway, for example. After maybe a few attempts at our first side and an extended conversation about rip off designer Chinese imports, Jeff decided we had done enough for the week, in terms of practice. At my request, we ended with a waltz run through. Then it was time for social dancing!

Danceworks wasn't as crowded this time, most likely due to the holiday weekend. That was okay though, because it made navigation a little less difficult. I think our social dancing has been getting better lately; Jeff is doing a good job of mixing up random bits of our routines and other things (patty-cake hands, anyone...or grapevines?) and I know I'm better with following than I used to be, or at least I'm much more used to dancing with Jeff now so I don't tense up or have to think about what he's doing and how to make sense of it, plus, I think I'm back leading less, probably as a result of not stressing out or being too mentally involved when I'm social dancing. I think it's been great practice for me. Just recently, Jeff and I were watching some video footage from dancesport competition, and there was a brief interview during one of the breaks with one of the judges, a well known and respected coach who was a serious contender for world titles in his own career. In response to a question about what competitive dancers seemed to be missing in comparison with the dancers of his own day, he said that unfortunately we don't see many competitive dancers with the abilities a social dancer would have, to be able to navigate a floor well among other couples, to be creative in doing so, to just have that ability to go and mix well on a social floor. Jeff and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing, "We do that!" We think it will help our competitive dancing when that time comes.

Jeff kind of broke the mold last night and danced a hustle with me; that was fun...I don't really know much hustle other than the basic step, but it's an easy one to get the flow of and not hard to follow. Besides our usual standard dances, we also had part of a rumba, a night club, and a salsa to add to the mix.

The only negatives I can think of at present were that my shoe buckle came off right before the dance, but I credit my "engineering skillz" for maneuvering it back together, and also the fact that the jumpsuit I was wearing (the one I bought at Seattle Star Ball) kept shedding sparkly dots everywhere. Maybe I'll have to stone it one day to cover up the spots. Which reminds me, I need to get sewing on that new ball gown...

The Third "In"

Dances:  Viennese Waltz, Nightclub 2-Step
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Arms and back at the gym.
Groomed Puppies Today:  1

Wow.  By tomorrow, Sarah and I will have had a complete full week of practice.  Not unheard of, but definitely not common either.  What's more is Sarah realized that we've been dancing together for 5 months now.  We're closing in on the half year and almost 60 documented practices!  Still no fights.  Either we're the most boring dance couple ever or most awesome.  Not sure which.  I can tell you however, that the arms and back workout today was good.  I'm pushing myself harder each week and it's working.

Sarah and I started off with our patented Nightclub 2-Step warm up.  I wouldn't be surprised if our first competition is just a freestyle Nightclub 2-Step.  We keep joking about it but I'm not writing it off yet.  The next step will be to convince some of our dance buddies to compete with us in the same event.  That would be awesome.

Practice tonight was shorter due to a planned happy hour run out to Ballard to help cheer up a fellow friend and dancer who broke her wrist during her lesson with Simeon.  That's right.  Simeon broke the wrist of his student.  What a monster.  Though in his defense, he claims that he wasn't even touching her when she fell.  The jury is still out on that one.  I guess I'll need to wear some padding for my next lesson just in case.

Sarah and I decided to revisit Fleckerls today and I made an important and crucial discovery.  As many of you know, the footwork for Fleckerls is "in, in out, in, in out" and so on until you do a Contra Check and go the other way again with "in, in, out, in, in out, etc.".  For some reason, I've never been able to sync up with Sarah to do the Contra Check.  Tonight I found out why.  In my entrance to the Fleckerls, my first step technically counts as an "in" and I haven't been counting it.  So essentially I start out with three ins, then go out and continue the pattern per normal.  That causes an unsolvable problem.  And a really stupid one, on my part, at that.  At least I figured it out and now we sync up better.  Still light years away from where we need to be for this figure but at least we look less retarded now and the Contra Check doesn't happen when Sarah has her legs crossed.  That was awkward.

Initiating the Viennese Contra-check

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot

Hovers: 1

As I entered the practice room today, I was greeted by the sound of a jolly merengue at a louder volume than usual, and Jeff's gleeful face...apparently this latest addition to the colossal ballroom dance collection is from the "Fast and Furious" and he was quite enamored of it, merengue though it be. Practice began with a waltz run through, and I must say that our hovers are getting very balanced and smooth, and I mentioned this when we finished.

Night club 2-step then commenced, accompanied by speculations about the possibility of competing in this dance sometime in the near future, and then we had the "brilliant" idea that I could dance bronze Latin with our Latin practice buddy for some competition or other, just for fun (he is pre-champ level and keeps getting better all the time, and I don't dance Latin other than socially). So we tested it out...bronze syllabus rumba; and I had to laugh...we must have looked just like a pro-am couple. Me: slow, sloppy, tall-and-awkward, and desperately trying to sell it at the same time, and him: quick, clean, compact, and under control. Good times. Jeff said we didn't look too bad though, for a bronze couple, so I'm probably exaggerating, but it was still good for some laughs.

We then worked on Viennese waltz, first just dancing it and then into the fleckerls. The trick here was for Jeff to figure out when to dump me into the contra check link so that we can switch from reverses to naturals. Problem is, he wasn't counting a crucial step as part of the figure, I believe, so that is why the footwork was never matching up. As for me, I'm just trying to figure out before it's too late that we're going into the fleckerls at all; I usually don't get the memo until step 2 or 3, and then it's really hard to recover, though I did a few times. When I attempted to justify my steps by saying I didn't feel the lead for the side step and cross behind step and therefore didn't take those steps, Jeff burst out with..."But I'm not LEADING anything...I'm just trying to dance my steps!!!" Oh, okay. In that case, I guess I'll just plug away at it until the lead decides to show up, but in the meantime, it means I should get off scott-free for not following! At least in that figure. It's only fair. I know what he means though. Sometimes you just have to focus on one aspect of a new figure at a time before you can assemble all the pieces. Right now he's just trying to figure out where the steps go, which is totally fair. I can hardly do my own in frame let alone worry about lead and follow. We'll get there in time.

We ended with a foxtrot. A rather short practice overall; the end of the week is approaching and energy levels are starting to wind down. Still, a worthwhile practice.