Turning On the Heel

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Foxtrot

Hovers: 2

Tuesday last week I thought we should focus on our heel turns. Heel turns are always and issue and always need work, so we warmed up with waltz and then got to work on the heel turns in foxtrot, since there are so many of them. Most of the heel turns are for me as a follow, so for me it's about staying balanced, getting my heels together, and having my weight transfers occur at the right time in the right part of the foot (no heels coming down until feet are together!). Then for Jeff, leading them is always a challenge, because he has to aim his directional energy on exactly the right plane to get me back on my heel, but still get around me without knocking me over or pulling the partnership offline. It's tough to find that spot. Turns out that we were kind of dipping to the side at the end of all of my heel turns, which kind of caused us to fall out of them and messed up the alignment. I suggested that we try practicing them completely flat, with no shape, just to see how that felt. For myself, I thought about the concepts we had worked on in ballet class with keeping both sides of the rib cage extended and keeping a balance on either side. This seemed to really help the problem.

We also worked on Jeff's heel turns, usually in the closed impetus. I asked if he could feel anything that I was doing to pull the balance off or make the turn harder to execute, but he didn't seem to think there was much of an issue. One of my biggest issues there is driving forward on my first step, since I often feel there isn't enough room between the lead's legs since he tends to cross them as he goes into the turn.

This time, cool down was the super slow Beegie Adair "Moon River" saltz. I had forgotten how truly slow that piece is, but every time it's a great exercise in balance and control.

The Flailing Fishtail

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Quickstep, Nightclub 2-step

Hovers: 2

Monday of last week was so long ago now, I need to be better at keeping track of what we worked on! I think that was the day we focused on quickstep, after warming up with waltz.

Basically, I wanted to work on any "trouble-spots" we tend to have in that dance, such as the rumba crosses, six-quick run (where the timing never seems quite right), and getting it comfortable up to to speed. Most of our practice was slow; this way we could really tell where the balance was off, where I rushing, and where the shaping was wonky and throwing things off. It turns out that the fishtail bit was more of a problem than we thought; I kept tipping over for some reason. I think I might have not been patient enough with the shape, so once I was aware of the issue I think we mostly fixed it. The rumba crosses are better but still feel strained to me, so I always want to work on them.

We ended, as usual with nightclub 2-step.

Could Have Danced All Night

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese Waltz, Quickstep, Nightclub 2-step, Bolero, West Coast Swing

Hovers: 3...losing count these days!

Last week's parties, as in the last weekend of March through April 1st, were a bit of a mixed bag. Thursday and Sunday were a bit slow, but Saturday there was a great turn out. Thursday night I danced very little, may two or three times, and once was a foxtrot with Simeon because I had signed up as a student on the "dance with a teacher" list. I got to dance a few hover crosses, so I was happy about that. Again, that dance is more geared toward students in the classes who really need more opportunities and experience dancing with music and with someone who knows they're doing, and guess what? Most of these students tend to be women, so not as much opportunity for me to ask any unattached gentlemen in turn. I did, however, dance nightclub 2-step with one of them who was just learning it while Jeff was dancing with his wife, and I think he had fun giving it a whirl.

I ended up skipping salsa on Friday, but Saturday I was ready for the ballroom party! I really look forward to them each week now; there's always such a good crowd, and the music is great, and there are guys with whom to dance, and friends with whom to visit, and it's just a fun time. Jeff and I danced a lot that night, and pretty well too, I'd say. We decided that our nightclub 2-step would likely get us disqualified at a competition since Jeff has been incorporating more and more unorthodox but very cool moves from standard, American Smooth, and who knows what else. We're also getting to the point where we can attempt quickstep on the social floor, which is fun but scary. At least Aria is big enough for it! Anyhow, that night I believe we hit all of our dances except tango. Afterwards, the whole crew headed out for frozen yogurt and then happy hour afterwards because the frozen yogurt place closed first. It was a good night.

Sunday West Coast Swing didn't have much of a showing, but I took Jeff's class and then danced a little bit afterwards. I do like the dance and am enjoying the opportunity to learn more.

The Inner Game of Following

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Tango, Quickstep, Foxtrot

Hovers: 4?

I'm going to cheat and post about last week's practices in one post since they are running together in my head. Normally I can look at the practice plans and it all comes back to me, but Jeff vetoed various parts of the plans, or we ended up working on other things, so I still get mixed up. We practiced on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday before the practice party though.

We did some more quickstep review and really tried to solidify that routine. It's definitely more comfortable, and we're now even brave enough to take it out on the social floor and give it a run, so that's an improvement. I think because of the speed, it's the hardest one to change and mix up on the fly from a floor-crafting standpoint, so getting to the point where the pieces are interchangeable is important.

We worked on a bit of foxtrot, mostly for warm up purposes. For some reason on Thursday Jeff felt that I was rushing him and falling into my steps, which I believe was probably true. I was very tired that day and due to both muscle tiredness and lack of mental focus, I was kind of just going through the motions, rather than being truly responsive. I've been realizing that, for all my efforts to turn off my thinking and thought processes while following, it still does require a lot of mental energy and concentration, just a different kind. Muscle memory is not always reliable, as it is less open to various options since it tends to stick with known patterns, but if I can mentally focus on where the lead is and what he's doing at any given time, almost in an observatory way, I find that I follow the best. I guess you could say it's like when you're ball player and you learn to think about nothing but watching the ball, be it tennis, baseball, basketball..etc. It's the same concept. You'll naturally react better to it if you focus your energies on the ball rather than on your reaction to it. It's more when practicing on my own or strictly running routines that I really work on the quality and technique of my reactions, but when I'm following, I'd better not be thinking too much about what I'm doing or everything goes awry. Anyhow, discovering how to concentrate my mental energies while dancing as a follow was a huge breakthrough for me, though when I get tired I get lazy and the muscle memory just takes over, and I go through the motions without really following, and that's what Jeff was feeling.

We also ended up working a lot on natural turns in waltz. Jeff discovered something about his footwork that apparently wasn't quite right, according to Kora and Simeon, so we spent a bit of time working on that. Natural turns are actually very difficult, even though they are one of the most basic figures, because of the way the partners must balance each other on the rotation without pulling each other over...it's actually much harder than it looks or sounds. Whatever Jeff changed with the footwork made it much smoother though.

Tango was the only dance we didn't really work on. I think it's gotten to the point where we feel we can't make much progress without a lesson, or as Jeff put it "professional help." I added that perhaps some tango "counseling" was in order. In any case, tango does need help.