Stirling weekend
Spent the weekend in Stirling – and what a lovely place it is to spend time in. Oh, also did some dancing while I was there…
There was the big party till 2am on Saturday night, plus a late tea dance this evening (Sunday.) During the day both days there was a series of Jango workshops, but I didn’t do them, although I heard they were good.
I had decided not to do the workshops for two reasons. First, I found the last two Jango weekends I’ve done (in Aberdeen) to be an exhausting experience. I’d have been going to Stirling on the Saturday already tired from a hard week of work – two days of workshops on top of that would have been too much and would have reduced my enjoyment of the dances.
Second, I found from my previous two Jango experiences (and from other classes and workshops) that if I wanted to be able to use the moves and technique taught, I’d have to spend time revising and perfecting the moves. However, there doesn’t seem to be many Glasgow folks who have been to any of these Jango events, so it’d difficult to practice them afterwards.
Maybe if my partner had been able to do it, it’d have been different, but no matter…
As it was instead of sweating all day in workshops on Saturday I had a relaxing day, catching up on sleep, chatting with friends and getting myself ready for a weekend of just simply dancing. On Sunday again, instead of sweating my way though two more workshops, I had a pleasant day in Stirling enjoying the sun in the company of a friend.
From previous workshops I’ve learnt other wee gems of technique that stand outside of just Jango and are applicable to all dancing, or at least to MJ. So maybe I missed that, but I don’t regret my decision.
So… let’s talk about the dances… Two-roomed freestyle on Saturday night, Tiggerbabe’s Smooth Grooves on Sunday evening.
Saturday wasn’t a good night for me.
I wasn’t happy with my dancing. I found the rooms too hot. I hated having to climb up and down those stairs between the two rooms so often looking for music or a partner to dance to & with. And that reflects my other two sources of unhappiness…
I’m sure both DJs played lots of music I would love to dance to, but I must have missed so much of it, either because I was in the wrong place, or couldn’t find the right dancer at the right moment.
Let’s talk about the dancer issue first… Certainly, there were plenty of “spare” women around both rooms most of the time. If I had wanted to dance, I could have danced with any of them. But when you’re having a bad night, as I was, you probably want to stick with the dancers you know you can get a good dance from (at least I do!) So that meant for me wanting to dance with mainly just my favourites and avoiding the adventurous option…
Shame that so many of my favourites then were also missing – from Glasgow in particular.
On the location thing… There’s a number of factors here…
Two rooms means that as you move between them you typically miss dancing to 2 songs – the one being playing in the room you leave, and the one being played if you arrive too far into a song… Combine this with lots of going back and forward in search of the right dancer, or (as we’re about to see) the right music, and you end up missing a lot.
The heat in both rooms meant a lot of time was spent outside cooling down. Wrong location when the right dancer and right music is inside and you’re missing them.
As I suggested above, I found it difficult to find music I wanted to dance to. I found this very strange. Normally Tiggerbabe’s “Latin & Blues” is right up my street, but I must have got the wrong directions as too often I just wasn’t connecting with the music she was playing. Downstairs, something similar, though not so bad for me. I think I had most of my good dances downstairs, but I kept heading back upstairs hoping my fortune would change…
Ultimately though, my greatest source of unhappiness was that I wasn’t happy with my dancing, and that will have coloured my feelings on everything else. Trying to remember what my actual problem was, but I’m really sure. I just don’t think I managed to get “into the zone”, I felt unimaginative and boring.
It wasn’t all bad though… I did enjoy every dance – and managed to get a few pretty fab dances where just for a moment I thought the night was going to come good – never really lasted, though the last hour or so was better for me that any of the ones before it.
Was also good to meet and chat with folks I don’t often see or get the chance to chat with.
Anyway, hope everyone had a good night – or at least a better one than mine. Cheers guys!
Oh, one last wee thing… Did I understand right – that the “bar” didn’t have any water?? Huh??
Today was a lovely sunny day – excellent weather for an impromptu picnic to celebrate someone’s birthday, say… 
And a pretty great picnic it was – congratulations to those who organised it! Especially to the guy who thought to buy the doughnuts – I really enjoyed mine! 
Joking aside, thanks to Freya for organising her own rather fab birthday picnic. I had fun helping out doing the shopping.
So, before the Tea Dance this evening a big bunch of us had a picnic, which left us all a bit stuffed – as one person put it: like a stomach on legs. It was good though.
As was the Tea Dance. Funny what difference 24 hours can make. Dancing tonight was pretty fab. Good music, good dances – still too hot, but I didn’t care.
There’s one difference I can identify between Tiggerbabe’s latin & blues room yesterday and the venue this evening – the light. Similar bunch of dancers (though I was happy to see a certain someone up from Glasgow), similar music, same me. The difference is I could actually see around me – and in front of me, where my partner usually is. That made connecting with partners so much easier. It’s a small thing, but I wonder if it’s not a significant factor.
I had a great time, danced loads, and was sorry when it ended.
Was it my first or second dance of the evening? I think it was my first one. Either way, that dance was better than any from the previous night. Right time, right place. Right music, right partner.
I danced with a lady who’d only been dancing a couple of months… She’d done a lot of other dancing though, and was predictably fab for just a beginner. She said she really liked my style, and wanted to be able to – now, what was it? I think it came down to be able to dance well with me in the way that I like to dance – slotted with a tendency to do cross-body leads. Rather flattering, I thought…
One thing about my style that I really need to fix is to stop looking down so much. Most of the time I’m looking at my partner – especially if she is giving my good eye contact in return – but otherwise, or sometimes for effect from looking away from my partner, I find myself looking down at the floor. And here’s the thing – as Amir pointed out in Aberdeen – it’s just the same as last time I looked at it!
I need to instead look up – at the “audience” or the judges, or that cute dancer across the floor there… 
Well, big thanks to the Sunday posse, and Franck and Sheena. Had a great day, hope you did too!
And that’s it! One rather fab day, quite a good weekend – so glad I stayed over in Stirling, or else I would have missed so much of the fun.
Cheers guys!!