Hyperreal

Back to my usual haunt tonight. It’s good to be home.

The class was good, once it had started! Lots of new beginners, and a delayed set-up put the start back at least 15 minutes.

Got to do the shoulder drop in the beginners class. I like this move, but haven’t done it very much lately, so it was good to get a wee practice of it. I like to do multiple slides to the side before I drop the girl’s hand – it’s fun and it lets you know whether they’re paying attention or not. During freestyle though it didn’t go so well with some of the folks I tried it on. Probably because I haven’t got my timing and lead of the move right. So, some revision needed there!

Because of the late start the first freestyle was over very quickly. But it meant more time for the intermediate class and later freestyle.

The moves we did in the intermediate class weren’t so difficult this week – no leans or anything like that, and compared to what I saw of the intermediate class I missed out on last night, it was a doddle.

We had a pretzel variation, a basket variation (which might have been the same one as we did a few weeks back) and a first move variation. Although I had problems with the pretzel variation at first, I got it together by the end. I think a big problem is that sometimes you’re partnered with someone equally clueless and so your hesitant lead is misunderstood by your partner who doesn’t know any better and so things go wrong. When partnered up with someone who has figured out the move, it makes it much easier to then know what it’s meant to feel like and so easier to repeat it, even with the less experienced dancers.

All the moves were ones I could see myself doing in the future, and I think I practised them all during the freestyle.

Was feeling really tired tonight, so my freestyle dancing wasn’t all it should have been. I started poorly, got better for a time after the intermediate class, but then my mind shut down and I was back to leading repetitive first moves and yo-yos.

Danced with quite a lot of folks, nevertheless.

One big difference between the GUU and JJ’s is that I get asked to dance a great deal more at the GUU, while in JJ’s I had to do pretty much all of the asking. Now that might have been because I didn’t do the intermediate class at JJ’s and so was less visible as a decent dancer to dance with. Or it might have been just because I must be a familiar face at the GUU and not at JJ’s. Or maybe it’s something to do with the profile of the people at the two venues.

I don’t know, but I like being lazy, and at the GUU I can be.