Hyperreal

Last night I went to Stirling, and managed to attend both the “Focus on…” workshop and the freestyle afterwards…

I had a really great night, though didn’t get home until just before two in the morning and I’m now suffering, not just from tiredness, but from various aches and pains in my body, including a sore throat, presumably from a cold coming on…

I was sceptical about the workshop before I went… It was triple steps and cha-cha-chas. Triple steps I associate with WCS, and pointless triple-stepping for the guy while waiting for the girl to do something spectacular. Cha-cha-chas are different. We did a bit of the Cha cha at Pitlochry, and I really enjoyed it. In this dance the triple-stepping serves the purpose of moving with your partner to the music. In fact, I discuss my feelings on triples at some length on this post about Pitlochry. Go read it, I’ll wait….

Read it? Good!

Now with that all said, I’ve noticed myself triple-stepping from time to time, like through the step in and sweep out from a yo-yo, so I can’t be totally adverse to them.

So I went to the workshop hoping that I’d learn something I’d been missing that would make them more attractive to me, which might even make me want to do them more, and may even motivate me to learn WCBS…

Well I was a little disappointed… It was a good workshop, certainly and it helped me improve my on-the-spot triple stepping. The First Move with the triple steps felt a little more comfortable than it did at Pitlochry, so something must have changed…

I had fun with the Cha-cha triple steps too. (I also learnt that the “BBC” moves are called “New Yorkers”, or something like that.)

I found myself a few times later in the freestyle doing a few more unconscious triples, but as soon as I noticed, it stopped! I also did a few conscious triples, in first moves and the like, but they still feel a little pointless to me.

Maybe the problem is the same as I have with cha-cha-chas. When counted in I could make them work, but in freestyle of just general practice I found that they weren’t fitting the music and so didn’t feel comfortable. Perhaps I need to be listening more closely to the rhythm of the music to make them fit. I think this is going further into the structure of the music than I have needed to do before though.

But let us put the workshop out of our minds and talk about the freestyle generally…

There are aspects to this freestyle I both like and dislike…

• Low numbers – this is good because it’s not too crowded and you get to dance with everyone. It can be bad as it’s sometimes harder to find the sort of person you want to dance with for a particular song. I also worry that once I’ve danced once or twice with a girl she’ll have had enough of me to last her a wee while and might not want to dance with me again. In fact, she may not have wanted to dance with me at all, but as the number were low, beggars can’t be choosers…
• Un-even balance – this is related. Towards the end of the night there were way more guys than girls. I am sympathetic to women who complain about not enough guys – though at least we’re willing to get up and ask more than most girls are. It wasn’t so bad though, and meant I got to rest when I needed to. But it did mean I got asked less to dance which meant my ego wasn’t getting the lovely massage it so much enjoys.
• Challenging music – a lot of the music played was totally unfamiliar to me, and I found some very difficult to dance to. This is bad, cos it just wants to make me cry… But it’s good in that I can learn from it and get better at it.

There are other things, but that’s enough to be going on with… Let’s look at the music some more though…

At one point there was a latin-y track played that I found just too fast, especially when I was dancing with a lady whom I guess was a bit of a beginner. I quickly found the only way to dance to it was at half speed, on every fourth beat, rather than every second.

A little later on there were one or two songs which were so ripe for lots of clever interpretation, but I just didn’t have the “language” in my dance to work with them. In fact there was a lot of music like that, but they usually had something somewhere I could work with – there were a few that were just a bit beyond me though.

Otherwise I think my dancing and musicality when I wasn’t being over-challanged was quite good. I had lots of nice comments along the lines of “fun”, “excellent”, “lovely”, so I think my dances were mostly enjoyed by my partners.

I enjoyed all my dances (apart from the first couple of the night, when I think I was dancing a bit pants – the very first one before the workshop I was talking and not concentrating, the second one after the workshop I just didn’t seem to got it together yet) but I’m concerned about a couple of things…

There are a few moves I like doing, maybe a bit too much, and so do them too often. One dancer that I don’t dance with very often said to me at one point “you like that move, don’t you?” probably as I’d just done the same move for the tenth time in the short space of a song. Although there is some small growth week-on-week in my repertoire, this is something I need to have a good long look at.

The other thing I’m concerned about is being too “full on” with eye-contact and the like. I’ve got better at this part of the connection in recent times and it makes for a great dance with those who can return it to me. But I’m concerned that the style I’m developing may put off the dancers I don’t normally dance with…

Hmm….

Definitely had to take it easy with the one or two relative beginners there, but I did have really fab and much more intense dances with a few dancers I’m more familiar with. I’m also back in contact lenses and it makes such a difference!!!

I got some useful feedback from one of the dancers I danced with, who told me my lead was light, but good, but that I “led on the 1″, rather than continuously. Still trying to understand what this really means, and how I might change it. I think though that I’m just going to keep it in mind for the class tomorrow and see if I can figure it all out in a practical way.

Also had a wee go at following – I haven’t done any following for two or three months now, and I was very rusty. More than once, even though I felt though the lead I should be turning one way, I found myself wanting to go the other way – in other words, I was anticipating. Don’t think I’ll lose too much sleep over this though…

Unlike last night when I didn’t get home until late as a bunch of us went for a supper/breakfast at a near-by service station. Despite being very tired I really enjoyed myself. I won’t go into the theme of the night beyond saying that some people gave one of the girls with us “a particularly hard time & she doesn’t deserve it at all because she’s a lovely girl ” (did I get the quote right?)

Anyway, I had a great time. Hope to make some of the workshops and dances in the new year…

Big thanks to all the dancers there, and to Franck and Sheena for a great night!