Hyperreal

Today is my 6 month anniversary.

And to celebrate I went dancing!!!!

Let’s get the moves down, as I need to get an early night…

• side-to-side shoulders lean - like my old favourite, the s-t-s s wrap, you let go, catch right to left, and wrap the girl in. Lean, back out and typically lead some sort of spin to get back to right hand.
• accordion sit - Accordion, but from the left lead the girl, sort-of sway fashion, in front of right leg. As you then bring left hand (which had been left high to the left from the accordion) down towards girl’s waist, you twist a bit clockwise and sit to bring the girl to sit on your thigh. Back up and out, still two-handed, return…
• hallelujah - to get back to normal two-handed hold.
• wrap-around - tonight’s classic move - totally new to me. Two-handed, lead with left hand girl to your left side, and around to front; some sort of spin or turn is usually called for at this point. It’s important to get out of the girl’s way as she walks around you by moving first to the right, then to the left…
• almost-pretzel turn out - pretzel signal, but pull hand away as girl goes for it ; still holding on l-r, turn clock-wise into half-nelson, sort-of facing lady; offer right hand high near face for girl’s left; step a touch forward, letting go of right hand and lead acw turn to bring girl back to where she started (you’ve naturally followed her round.) again, some sort of spin to get back to girl’s right hand.

These were all really cool moves!!!

I also learnt a drop when a girl thought I was doing a lean but I wasn’t… Naturally, it was my fault , but I caught her before there was any harm done (except for a scraped ankle, but I’m tough, I can take it… )

In the past I’ve found the side-to-side let go and catch r-l, and wrap hard to lead, but it seemed to be working much better tonight. I mixed this up with the lean version as taught tonight and things mostly went smoothly. I guess this means I must be getting better.

The accordion sit didn’t go well until I actually crouched down a lot more than I had initially. As quite a few girls during the class said they didn’t really like this move and I thought it a bit cheesy, during freestyle I just missed out the sit and did a classic accordion.

The wrap-around (not sure about this name?), the couple of times I tried it freestyle didn’t work well, with the girl turning as she stepped to my left-hand side. Not sure what’s going wrong there.

The almost pretzel thing I didn’t do during freestyle. Maybe I should have. During the class it was quite often difficult to keep hold of the girl while I was half-nelsoned. As I’m about to let go I’m not sure it matters…

Anyway, had a really good time – don’t think I missed any dances, though if I did it was only to get my breath back.

Six months… Who would have thought it…