Hyperreal

JJ’s tonight, and it’s not getting any less crowded! Seemed to be even more beginners – where are they all coming from?!?

Maybe it’s the second wave of New Year’s resolutions. Although I didn’t start dancing directly as a result of a NY resolution, it was ultimately a factor, and I decided at around the start of February that I’d give it a go, so I guess these folks are me, one year later…

When I arrived though, just after the beginner’s class (OK, who said “hotshot!”?!) I was struck by how few folks I recognised as I looked round.

Even with all the beginners out of the way for the intermediate class, there were still lots of people. Strangely though, while there’s typically about a dozen spare women for the class, there was almost a perfect match tonight. And it wasn’t so much that the women were missing, as there seemed to be extra guys.

Actually I suspect many of the extra men were ambitious beginners, as there were a few guys around me struggling a bit with what I thought was a fairly basic routine tonight.

The routine originally had a ballroom drop in it. I’m not sure, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen Franck teach a drop. Can’t even remember him teaching many, if any, dips or seducers and maybe only one or two leans, so this was a bit of a surprise.

I was also rather worried about it for a few reasons – drops aren’t my thing, the floor was a bit packed, and as I looked down the line at the next half-dozen partners I was going to get, I didn’t fancy my chances…

Fortunately Franck first scaled the drop back to a dip, then decided to abandon that move and just teach his planned alternative, as he reckoned the floor was too busy to safely teach drops.

So here are the moves…

• Tea-pot – classic move. I normally get into a tea pot from a basket or first move. Less danger of missing with your right hand when it’s already connected. (Didn’t stop me having a cheeky joke about with a friend though. )
• Side-to-side block – beginner’s variation. When I used to do side-to-sides more often, this was my favourite variation. Now I just like to throw in blocks mid-travelling return.
• “Twiddle-twiddle” into a right-hand push spin – simply a double travelling return (another favourite of mine!) leading from the L, into a RH block for a push spin.
• RH push spin barrier (replacement to Ballroom Drop) – rather than push off right, lead into your LH blocking to girl’s R (so it’s a barrier) and then lead back into the RH block. Repeat to taste. Once you get bored, do the actual spin, catch L, return.

Beyond that I already do variants of the first three moves, I didn’t especially practice any of the moves of the night during freestyle.

Instead I just had a good night’s dancing. One or two pretty good dances, but nothing “wow!” Wasn’t really in the zone. I did find though that I was able to take some of the improvisation of moves that I did on Sunday and repeat them tonight (although they were no-longer improvised, they were just moves I had discovered myself… )

But it’s all good.

And apart from an alarming number of dance-floor collisions tonight which included having my foot stood on by a fairly sharp heel, and having my arm lacerated by someone else’s partner’s finger nails, I had a pretty good night.

It’s funny though… Even though it was packed out early on, near the end of the night I looked across the dance-floor at the dozen or so couple dancing to a harder-than average song, and found that I had danced with all but two of the ladies on the floor at the time. No idea what that means… Whatever…

Hope you all had a good night. Especially if you spent any of it dancing with me.