More Fun at the Atomic Ballroom

This must be terrible for people I know who don't give a rat's ass about my new swing-dance thing. My heart goes out to you. I've often been in situations where someone is passionately describing something which I know and care nothing about. Fortunately, at least part of the point of this blog is to record my thoughts, impressions about things, and activities for my benefit, not yours. So nyah! :-)

Friday night at the Atomic Ballroom. I get there for the 6:15 class covering Balboa. The basic had been covered briefly at the free opening lesson they gave at last Friday's dance, but this class started over, got us solid in the basic, and stepped up our speed. I think the speed is going to take some work. We added in the "falling off the log" pattern which are side-steps (Balboa basic moves in-line with one's partner.

Aside: Odd now that I spend time on YouTube watching dance video. And get annoyed at some of the historical footage which doesn't show footwork.

Back to AB lessons:
I believe we worked on transitioning from a Lindy Circle to the Balboa, but I might be mixing things up in my head. The second lesson focused almost exclusively on the Lindy Hop, going over the basic Lindy Circle (which helped me a lot), and a Lindy Circle ending in closed position. I don't think we covered the transition back to open position, instead moving to the East Coast basic. Got several complements on my strong lead from the instructor and experienced students filling in as follows. Still working on perfecting hand positions for the various moves.

Phil showed up for the third class as did a Girl Scout troop (high-schoolers). That's only creepy if you let it be. We covered the East Coast basic, transitioning to the tuck turn, changing places, the circle, then the the Charleston basic. Very cool. I feel like I'm in the process of really solidifying the footwork, and smoothing out the rough edges of balance and lead.

It ends up that I actually know one of the other guys, JE, in the class from high-school. His S.O. has been in several of the AB classes I've taken. We didn't really know each other back in the day, but it's nice to run into someone like that every once in a while.

Stayed for a couple hours of the dance, which a couple of the other OCSwing students showed up for. I definitely got some dances in this time around, with each of the OCSwing students as well as one of the adult chaperones (troop leaders?) of the the Girl Scouts (I think her daughter was in the troop). Cut out early in order to ensure a solid start to Saturday.

UPDATE:
March Lesson Total:
OCSwing: 1 Lesson, 1 Hour
AB: 4 Lessons, 3 Hours

Running Total:
SL 2 Hours
OCSwing 2 Hours
AB: 4.5 Hours (including .75 hours of Salsa)