So I haven't been blogging for a long time much at all. I keep wanting to make these deep, thoughtful, insightful posts, and there's not a lot of that going on in my dancing. Maybe there never was. Lately, I've been dancing a lot (which is better than blogging about it, I think you'll agree), but I'm trying to keep all the action in my body rather than being all up in my head. Or at least, these are my excuses for not blogging. I've got drafts of nine "deep" posts, I swear. But then, I've had them all for months, so...
I've decided just to blog everything and quit holding out for significance. So here are some random notes from recent group classes.
Lately, I'm trying to participate on all the group classes that cover what I think of as socially useful dances: Salsa, Rumba, Country, and (to a lesser extent) Swing and Foxtrot. How is this different than just going to ALL the group classes, you ask?
Well, first of all, I'm not going when the dance is totally new to me, which happens with what strikes me as surprising frequency. There's a bunch of dances in the world, and they offer most of them. Cha Cha, Samba, Quickstep, Paso Doble, Jive, Hustle, Argentine Tango, Viennese Waltz and Bolero are all stuff I've recently skipped. I probably should add Cha Cha at some point relatively soon, as there's a lot of Cha Cha-able music out there - lots of pop and rock, which surprised me.
Secondly, Before the "Socially useful" dance push, I was spending most of my time on Waltz and Tango, just because I love them so much. And down that same path I could see Viennese Waltz, Argentine Tango, and Bolero looming. Since my one of my main goals is explicitly social, it was clear I needed to emphasize the social dances more than I had been. Tango is definitely a "dancer's dance", and though waltz is fairly social, I need more venue options than Italian weddings. I think I have a lot more to say about the social vs beloved dichotomy, but if I let this post go to long, I'll trap myself in a rewriting/editing cycle, so set that aside for now.
Two Step: It was a small class, I was happy to know about two figures that my partner didn't (not bragging - the score was about four figures for me versus her two). I tried them on her anyway during warm-up, on the theory that if I timed them right, and led them definitively enough, it would all work out fine. That was interesting and instructive if not totally successful.
We did basic underarm turn right, and underarm sweetheart turn (which was new to me). We also did Promenade (new to me, very fox-trotty, unsurprisingly) and a couple of un-sweetheart turns (hey, it's my blog, I get to invent terms for things that have official names if I want to. Especially if I don't remember them). Anyway, I pretty much know one easy, basic way to half turn my partner out of sweetheart, and I've been briefly exposed to a much flashier, turn and a half version, but I know I couldn't do it without at least referring to my notes and maybe not even then.
Rumba class: This was a pretty full class, and everybody there was pretty experienced, for a basics class. There was one person who was even less experienced than me, but he was game and so Dance-Sama took that as permission to pile on a bunch of stuff. We are working over several weeks toward an extended series, that starts with Basic, Cross Body Lead, Open Breaks, Underarm Turn / 5th Position Break, Swivel Promenade. Yes, she covered all that in one class.
This was a lot for me to take in, but it's starting to make sense, I'm starting to have some body intuition regarding dancing. I've done cross body lead in Salsa and Rumba, and it's starting to make sense that in Rumba I need the forward step that precedes the Salsa version in order to get the forward and back motion that Salsa gives you for free. Doesn't mean my body will remember to do it, but it's a start.
I'd seen most of the other figures before, so nothing earth shattering, and I certainly could use all the practice I can get. The Swivel Promenade was new, and we barely got to that in the time we had. I stayed after and practiced a little, with a partner initially, then alone.
The other insight was Dance-Sama made me feel the correct posture (or at least a better posture) for Rumba (and probably for life - I tend to have the typical nerd's horrible posture). Shoulders back, everything else in and up and slightly forward. I'm working on making that habitual.
Waltz class tonight. Social and beloved. A two-fer!
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