Exercise And Still Dancing Pt 5

20070515
Morning sees me at the gym with AZ, then staying for a spin class. Is that going to be my Tuesday-Thursday schedule from now on? There's a dead hour in between I need to fill. I wonder if AZ can schedule me at 7am instead of 6:30. Spin was awesome, and I'm buzzing for the rest of the day.

Dancing at Atomic Ballroom
Too many dances to remember. Why has it been weeks since I danced with Nicole? Though she's someone I know peripherally, she doesn't take classes at Atomic (that I know of), and she's clearly a better dancer than I, which puts me outside of my comfort zone. I feel the same way with the advanced team members who don't take classes here like Laura or Kristina. The only way to show competence is to dance with them, but dancing nervously isn't the best way to do that...

Ooh, a funny incident. I saw Sydney looking for a partner when Jailhouse Rock came on, so I asked her to dance. For the first 30 seconds or so, I pretended that I was only going to do a sedate East Coast basic. When she realized I wasn't doing anything else, she started stealing peeks at me, at which point I laughed at the Gotcha! moment and started really dancing.

Classes earlier in the evening:
Crecia Krysia and I are the only ones present for the 6:15, so we just fill in as leads for the two people taking the AB class, which is fine. Before we join the class, Crecia Krysia and Jerry tell me that I'm making huge strides in my dancing. Crecia Krysia says she can tell the difference from night to night. Jerry says I'm where he was four years into his dancing career. I appreciate the complements, and know I have a really long way to go. I know my basics are solid and that I'm adding some moves, but there's no way that I can consider myself anything but solid beginner.

Swing 2 Jack and Jill (Jerry)
The is Atomic code for a lead change class. Probably no coincidence that Gerald is here, as he loves these classes. Mark shows up too. I meet Orchid and Carrie for the first time, and Julie joins us again. Julie's been working and doing more Salsa than anything. Interesting that one can tell a salsa dancer from her styling almost right away. Interesting that the ladies almost universally resort to muscling arm-leads. I work on being responsive to their body leads with my dance with Jasmine (and Amy) popping into my mind. This bites me a bit as Orchid points out that I'm back-leading. Ha! So she starts to really vary up what we're doing with sugar pushes and varied swing outs. That's quite adventurous, as most of the other follows are doing the choreography exactly. Jerry singles out Crecia Krysia as having particularly good lead technique, and me as being pretty good at following. I've probably worked on follow footwork more than the other leads (even Gerald) as I had to teach it to SS a few weeks back, and have specifically been doing it on my own every once in a while.

Choreography:
Oppositional rock-step send out
2 x sugar push
swing out
swing out with lead change
swing out
swing out with outside turn
swing out with inside turn
swing out with lead change
8 count circle
repeat

Darren teaches the Hijacks class, and again jams it full of content. I think he might be being too ambitious about how much he can cover.