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Dance Prep
Mar. 1st, 2009 12:04 pmNext weekend is Mad Jam, a weekend of hustle and west coast swing competitions, workshops, and social dancing in the DC area. Ellen and I will be competing together for the first time, I'll be dancing pro-am with my instructor Ginny, and jack-and-jill, all of the above in both hustle and west coast. Consequently, yesterday was a big day of cramming. It started with two hours of hustle class working on amalgamations and double inside turns. This was followed by a double private lesson with Ginny.
I like my lessons with Ginny. While Aideen, Ellen and my smooth instructor, is unequivocally the best dance teacher I've ever had, Aideen is more of a football coach: she drills us hard and pushes us harder. That's not a complaint; it's exactly what I said I wanted when we started our lessons at Dance Sport, and it's one of the reasons she is such a great teacher. Ginny, on the other hand, is more playful in our lessons. We joke around a lot more and frequently get distracted and wander off-topic discussing theory. Just as an example, another couple that was sharing the space with us was working on samba and whenever there music was playing and we weren't doing hustle or west coast, I almost absentmindedly began doing my balancetes. Ginny's response: "Okay, we're doing a minute of samba so you can get out your system." It was the right idea.
After my three hours of hustle and one of west coast, I went back home and pretty much collapsed. After a dinner of beer and hot wings (shut up, I earned it) I felt barely able to move. Unfortunately, I'd been planning on going to Peppermint, a local social ballroom group. In fact, I'd been planning to go for two months, largely because they were doing a nightclub two-step lesson that night, a dance I know more than a little about but not nearly as much as I'd like. It seemed that exhaustion was going to win the day, but at the last minute, through a not-inconsiderable act of willpower, I got my ass up and there.
The lesson was good. Better than I expected, though I'm getting really sick of the people who don't take any lessons other than the pre-dance lessons. The dance itself was great. I ran into one of my favorite couples from Top Hat, several of my favorite partners, and had two phenomenal Viennese waltzes, a good bolero, and one of the rare rumbas that I actually enjoyed (the secret: we did it to cha cha music).
Then I came home, flopped onto the coach unable to move, and watched two hours of Veronica Mars.
I like my lessons with Ginny. While Aideen, Ellen and my smooth instructor, is unequivocally the best dance teacher I've ever had, Aideen is more of a football coach: she drills us hard and pushes us harder. That's not a complaint; it's exactly what I said I wanted when we started our lessons at Dance Sport, and it's one of the reasons she is such a great teacher. Ginny, on the other hand, is more playful in our lessons. We joke around a lot more and frequently get distracted and wander off-topic discussing theory. Just as an example, another couple that was sharing the space with us was working on samba and whenever there music was playing and we weren't doing hustle or west coast, I almost absentmindedly began doing my balancetes. Ginny's response: "Okay, we're doing a minute of samba so you can get out your system." It was the right idea.
After my three hours of hustle and one of west coast, I went back home and pretty much collapsed. After a dinner of beer and hot wings (shut up, I earned it) I felt barely able to move. Unfortunately, I'd been planning on going to Peppermint, a local social ballroom group. In fact, I'd been planning to go for two months, largely because they were doing a nightclub two-step lesson that night, a dance I know more than a little about but not nearly as much as I'd like. It seemed that exhaustion was going to win the day, but at the last minute, through a not-inconsiderable act of willpower, I got my ass up and there.
The lesson was good. Better than I expected, though I'm getting really sick of the people who don't take any lessons other than the pre-dance lessons. The dance itself was great. I ran into one of my favorite couples from Top Hat, several of my favorite partners, and had two phenomenal Viennese waltzes, a good bolero, and one of the rare rumbas that I actually enjoyed (the secret: we did it to cha cha music).
Then I came home, flopped onto the coach unable to move, and watched two hours of Veronica Mars.
