Well, I'm feeling a bit of a lull in my dancing and enthusiasm. Just part of the life of a dilettante, I suppose. I do know that there's a fairly frustrating phase in any learning process where you can do the basics (poorly, and non-automatically, in my case), and you can start to see what's going on with people who REALLY know what they're doing, but you can't *do* it. Unfortunately, I still don't feel confident enough in my dancing to "take it on the road" - I'm too vain to dance anywhere except the studio, surrounded by my fellow students.
For the most part.
I've been working on the jitterbug a lot lately, and it's starting to feel natural. Of course, the footwork is dead simple, almost as easy as merengue, and the music is fun. I only know three or four "tricks" (my term for anything other than the basic steps - spins, etc), but I'm fairly able to fire those off at the right time, and I am starting to feel which spin or move "works" right now, based on our hand positions, etc. I still occasionally fire off the "wrong" spin or whatever, but it's actually fun in that it feels SO wrong. Which is huge for me, because it means that most of what I'm doing feels pretty right - that's new.
My other point of pride with the jitterbug is that, despite the pace, I'm rarely late making up my mind and leading my dance partner. In most of my other dances, I'm often firing of a lead cue just a fraction of a second too late for my partner. The fact that I have a feel for the right thing to do and the right time to do it with jitterbug makes me happy.
And I'm not so much thinking my way through the dance, I'm just dancing.
Cool.
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