Hyperreal

I was late to JJ’s again this week, but this time I have an excuse – I was seeing a friend I hadn’t seen for a while and wouldn’t see for another while again.

So I was about half an hour late. I had also had a wee drink, so wasn’t 100% sober. This revealed itself in two ways – I made lots of stupid mistakes in the beginner’s class (though I sorted myself out soon enough) and I was very, very thirsty.

Of course, it was that guy at the bar again.

Beginner’s moves were shoulder slide; yo-yo; shoulder drop; man spin. The man-spin unusually finished with a left-right handhold which I mostly got right, but maybe because of that I quite often got the shoulder-slide exit wrong. Fortunately there’s time in the return to fix these things!

During the first freestyle I didn’t have time to get a drink, so I went into the intermediate class very, very, very thirsty!

Moves were…

• double first move with double turn (or something like that) – basically move with the lady during the turn out and turn her a second time and come round into the first-move position again facing the other way. Repeat. Come out with a push spin.
• not sure what this is called – something about shoulder blade returns. The idea is during the return you put your spare left hand on the girl’s left shoulder blade as she returns, and from there you bring the right hand over the top your head to the right shoulder and push/pull the girl along the tramlines she likes to dance on. This then repeats bringing her back the other way. We’re still on a r-r handhold.
• sway lean? From the previous position, bring the girl round into a sway. on the way out, follow her as she steps forward, nudging her into position in front of you, then bring arms up under her arms and step back into a lean. Bring her back up and spin her out clockwise.
• simple return into a comb to get back onto l-r handhold.

First move thing was fairly straight-forward. So was the shoulder blade thing once I got out of the way of my partner. I’m a bit concerned there may have been a slight risk of shoulder injury in this move if you get the girl unaware. Dunno.

The sway lean I wasn’t so convinced by. I found it difficult to get into the right position for the lean and quite often the girl would just launch herself at me without me leading her. At least one girl didn’t pick up the thing Mairi was saying about taking most of your weight one of your legs. Hmm… Then there was another girl who was a bit sweaty and was wearing a sleeveless top.

The only move I tried later was the first move double turn, but only once, not twice – there wasn’t really enough space on the dance floor for these long-distance moves.

After the class I managed to get some water, despite the guy at the bar, before going dancing! I was sober by then, and needed to dance – urgently!

I’ve discovered a great way to get asked to dance at JJ’s, but I’m not going to divulge my secret, but I got asked loads more this week than last. And there’s even without some of my “usual (JJ’s) suspects” being there.

Music was mixed. Love dancing to the likes of Don’t Phunk With My Heart (Black Eyes Peas) and Sandstorm (Darude), don’t love so much dancing to all those blues/swing numbers (sorry Sheena!) I didn’t invite girls to dance for those songs, but got asked and would never say no, even to those that I really want to. With slow songs, I just never know what to do to spend the time. With fast songs I’m too busy dancing!!!

Plenty of other seem to like that sort of music though, so I can’t complain too much. I’m still hoping I get more into as my dancing improves. Really not sure though…

After Sheena had finished her set, JJ’s normal DJ came on and played a long, long mix of rock’n'roll songs, starting off with a Grease mega-mix. This was nice and fast, but like I said, very long. Most people got exhausted way before me and my partner – I think we might have managed about 8 or 9 minutes of just hard, fast dancing. In that time it’d gone from over a dozen couples dancing down to about three. I think we gave up after a some mistake and as the music changed to another track we decided we’d had enough.

Got to say though, that was the best dance of the night, bar none.

Funniest incident of the night was the sudden and mysterious appearance of a pair of girl’s knickers on the dance floor during the class. Oops! They also happened to appear right next to me. Just got to say, they were nothing to do with me, despite what anyone says! Of course, no-one claimed them as theirs – would you?

Funny that this should happen the same night as a matching bra appears outside my flat in the street. Perhaps there’s a girl throwing her underwear at me and I’ve just not noticed her yet!

Also funny was a weird compliment I got after I had left. I was walking along Sauchiehall Street (where JJ’s is) which is where so much of Glasgow’s night-life is. As well as all the bars and clubs you gets young guys cruising in their mum’s Corsas that they’ve tricked up with blue neon lights and the like…

So, as I was saying, walking along the street. After a while you get used to these guys blasting their music out, setting off air horns or shouting out abuse at you. It wasn’t really a surprise then when I heard a guy shouting something to me I didn’t quite hear. Foolishly, I turned round to see what he was saying and then when I saw it was just another idiot in a car, turned back expecting some sort of abuse directed at me. I didn’t expect his next comment…

“Check that guy out with the sexy wee jeans!”

He said something else after that but I didn’t quite hear. Perhaps it was just his friend saying “yeah, he must work out!”

So, a pretty good night which improved considerably towards the end.

Thanks everyone for a good night. And if you want to see me in my sexy wee jeans, see you Wednesday at the GUU or Saturday at the Glasgow party!