Hyperreal

Went to Jumpin’ Jaks for the first time tonight, for the Tuesday class.

It felt weird. I seem to like weird analogies, so here’s one I made up about this.

It’s like you come home to your house, and your family is there, and all your furniture and stuff, but the house that they’re all in has totally changed. Different walls, different rooms, different everything. And you’re the only one that’s noticed the difference.

Like I said, weird.

I’m not going to go into a big long spiel about how the class was, but we did have lots of new beginners, presumably as a result of the busk. That said, I don’t know what a typical night at JJ’s is like to compare.

Because there were so many beginners I was asked by one of the taxi dancers to help out in the consolidation class. Which was nice. Except it meant I missed the Intermediate class. Thinking about it now, maybe it’d have been better for some of the more advanced rather than the less advanced to help out, and let a novice intermediate get the most out of the night.

But then I hope to be doing two other classes this week, plus Sunday, if that happens. So I think maybe missing one intermediate class isn’t so bad.

Back to the story… I was partnered for a bit during this class with a complete novice who was doing really, really well. Her spins were fantastic. Turned out she’s been dancing lots and lots of other dances, right from the age of three, and her mother was a world champion in her particular discipline. I reckon she’ll be teaching me quite soon.

During the freestyle after, probably due to feeling a little uncomfortable in the unfamiliar surroundings, I didn’t dance as much as I would have on my usual Wednesday night. Also, I didn’t know so many people and I didn’t know who would be helpful for me to dance with.

I did dance with “the usual suspects” – three or four people I know well enough, and have danced with often enough, to make it easy to dance with them.

Overall though, not my best night.