Hyperreal

Another fine night at Jumpin’ Jacks…

Only managed to injure one person tonight…

But I’ll talk about that later…

I arrived a couple of dances before the intermediate class… A catering malfunction kept me back…

The moves…

• Double-handed sway. Don’t really need to say anything about this. We tried a step back left and a step back right version. I’m almost always a step back right kind of guy…

• Comb push-spin. From a two-handed return, normal comb, though the L-L hold helps you maintain the connection with the girl when you let go R-R. Place RH onto lower arm, push-spin… Catch L-R.

• Return into close hold, mambo steps. The name says it all. Don’t let the girl step back after the return by bringing your R arm around her as she turns… Draw into close hold. Mambo steps… On a step back, rather than stepping forward, open out into open first move. (Need to have good, high hold on girl’s back with a decent arm-to-arm connection too.)

• Open first move turn out (?) Open first move and on the way out an extra lead on the girl’s hip to turn her clockwise. Catch R-R for a return into the sway…

The mambo steps was difficult to lead, but I’m not sure how much that was me not leading them well, or followers anticipating as others weren’t leading them well. I found that with my first few partners things went well, but later the girls anticipated the steps without me leading them. I’d sometimes lead the mambo stepping back first, for my partner to miss that totally… Or once I’d done the required number of mambo steps, the girl would try to open out without me leading it.

I don’t know exactly what was going wrong there, but it doesn’t fill me with confidence to try those moves in freestyle.

It didn’t help that towards the end of the class there was a mini stage invasion from some random bloke doing a very good impression of Bez from the Happy Mondays at his most incoherent. No idea where he came from, but he was soon ejected…

Back to dancing… I felt my dances before the class were good, and they just got better afterwards… I danced with a few folks that I hadn’t in a while, and managed to surprise one with my now famous reverse catapult. Unfortunately I surprised her by clobbering her on the side of her head with my leading arm and almost decking her. Whoops! Profuse apologies followed, which she accepted. We’ll see how keen she is to dance with me again sometime soon…

I had a really good dance with a first-time beginner. She could follow pretty much everything I tried on her, though it was mainly beginner moves I was using. She’s going to do well.

I tried out the right-handed neck-break variant that had been mentioned on the forum with a couple of girls and it worked a treat. It’s just like a sway but you bring your hand up to the girl’s shoulder as she comes in. I’m curious how well it works in the “open” variation, as the start of the neck-break has changed from a CW move into a ACW move, so the “open” part won’t flow very well from there…

Anyway, a good night, thanks to everyone!

Cheers!