Hyperreal

It was the GUU tonight. I almost didn’t go… Mega-tired, but I didn’t want to miss it, especially as I had half a commitment to meet someone there…

So glad I went though – I had a brilliant time.

The only down-side was the lack of numbers again. Can’t maybe 30 or so folks change from going on a Tuesday to JJ’s, to going to the GUU on a Wednesday? It’d make such a difference to both nights.

I arrived shortly after the beginner’s class (I would have been there but I just had a new toy delivered ) and managed to get a couple of fairly good dances in before the Intermediate class… I was still warming up…

Intermediate class was really good though…

• Open Pretzel – classic move. This is the one where you pull away your RH offered behind and turn the lady twice ACW with left switching into right hand.
• Reverse Catapult – beginner variation. This is one of my favourite moves.
• Accordion Nelson Comb – another favoured move – after the comb pull through getting out of the way to end facing R-R.
• Sway LH turn out. This is the one where you switch hands during the sway and turn the girl out ACW one and half times.

I really like all these moves. Two are well into my repertoire, and I’d like to use the others more. I’m not very good, however at the change-hands part of the sway, and for some reason, pretzel leads rarely seem to occur to me. Think it must be something in my lead that makes most girls always better positioned to move to my right, rather than my left…

The main problem with the reverse catapult, after actually getting the girl to re-connect L-L is to actually keep that L-L hold through the spin, and let go R-R. Too many inexperienced followers will instinctively switch your hold back into their R hands, or just not make it easy for you to let go of the R-R hold. Fortunately this was (mostly!) sorted by the end of the class.

Despite the low numbers, I had a really good freestyle… Meant having to dance with a few of my favourite dancers there more than once or twice (oh, what a burden!) but I also got to dance with folks I might not get to dance with so often too…

I am concerned that I have been labelled (hopefully in a cheeky manner ) by one dancer as a “cheese-monster” due to my musical interpretation of and playing along with “Wondrous Place”. It’s such a lovely song, and the breaks are so well flagged up, how can anyone not play up to it? I like a bit of cheesiness as much as the next guy, but never thought of myself as a cheese-monster…

Overall I was pretty happy with my standard of dancing tonight. During the class I got a couple of compliments which suggested I was one of the few who could lead the routine properly. And felt much more “in the zone” during the freestyle than I have in a while… Managed to throw in a greater variety of moves in most dances (there are some dancers I just seem to do as well leading, so I can’t do some of my more tricky moves with them, and they wouldn’t be the right people to experiment on with unfamiliar moves.)

So, despite the low numbers and tiredness, I had a great night.

Cheers guys!