Hyperreal

What an awesome day!

Baby aerials workshop in the afternoon, and party at night!

This’ll be a quick report, as I should get to my bed… Maybe I’ll have time to write more tomorrow (or should I say later today!)

I’m really pleased by how well I did at the workshop. From the first move (the first move jump actually) I thought it was going to be an unmitigated disaster. I was so wrong! You watch, and even if consciously you have no idea how you’re going to pull it off, somehow your body just does the right thing. (Well, sometimes!)

There were a few moves my body just didn’t seem to get at all. But out of at least 10 moves, there were only 2 I didn’t at all get – one just wasn’t happening, the other my partner and I decided to sit out as it looked a bit beyond us and by that time we were quite tired and sore.

My favourite move was probably a slidey one, pulling the girl though between my legs. That went well, wasn’t sore and looked and felt good. Strange that the move we couldn’t get was another slidey one. Actually now I think about it, there was third sliding move I don’t think I managed to get working with my partner, though I did once with the demo. We’ll put that down to not-very-slippy shoes when doing the move. Or I’m just not very good at these “drop and slide” moves.

I felt a little inadequate at time as, as far as I could tell, all the other couples managed to get all the moves. But I’ll put that down to either our lack of experience or greater ages.

Some of the moves were really hard on my right thigh. Almost all the jump moves involve it in some way. At the lunch break I was so sore I could hardly walk down the stairs. Some ibuprofen fixed me up though for the second half.

(Hang on, wasn’t this supposed to be a quick post??? OK, I’ll cut it short!)

So, the workshop was magic – had a really great time.

Thanks to our teacher and his lovely demo – she’s an very good dancer and looked really great doing all these moves.

Biggest thanks goes to my long-suffering partner who ended up sitting or lying on the floor more times that I think we could count – and kept smiling. Thanks for understanding, thanks for not complaining, thanks for all the help and advice – basically thanks for everything! I had a totally fab day!

I’ll talk about the party tomorrow I guess, but here were the moves in the “fun” class…

• First move ocho – figure eights with the feet in the middle of the first move. Push spin at end to change hands and go left-left over after the return.
• Double double-handed man turn, lady turn (???) – double-handed turn of the guy, turn of the girl, turn of the guy, turn the girl then return (drop hand back to r-r hold.) Is that the right number of turns?
• Sway walk ronde – Sway, couple of steps then on right foot stop girl going forward and do part-circles in a ronde-style so that together you’re drawing a sort-of figure eight.

If it wasn’t obvious, there was an “eight” theme for these moves – a tribute to the G8 meeting and Live 8.

Liked them all, but first and third are too involved for me. Maybe give the second move a wee outing during the week.

Tune in later for the rest of my party report, and for all thanks I owe…

Cheers!