July 2007 Dancing Week 2

20070708
Harlem Styling
Less drilling before the class on what up-holds are. More work on reminding people of the choreography, then speeding the choreography up. Lots of repetition. Add in the "frog" jump.

I get really blocked on a section of Big John's Special. We do an over-rotated Lindy Circle, adding in 90 degrees and 45 more, all with Harlem styling. I'm just not getting around far enough. Over and over again, partner after partner. I see Mike doing it seemingly effortlessly, which shows me it can be done. Sucks to not get it.

Atomic Routine is still just review.

20070710
Dance Slower
Darren teaches us west-coast moves, but I don't remember much of it. Charles, Michelle, and Fred are now regulars at the Atomic classes.

Sugar Pie
Plural of sugar pushes, not choreography to "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch." I meet Ian's fiancee formally for the first time. What's up with Atomic Ballroom and redheads?

Sugar Push
Sugar Push with triples
Block Turn
Swiveling Sugar Push
something else

20070712
GF told me a couple weeks ago that Hightop didn't just do salsa dancing, but swing too! I dropped him a note, and last week we agreed to meet up at Lindy Groove. Since I have a week to plan ahead, Charles, Mark, and Michelle rally at my place, and we carpool. We don't make the classes, but have a full night of dancing. Introduce Michelle and Mark to Hightop. And separately to SL. But do I introduce Hightop and SL to each other? I don't think I do. Funny.

See Phil there. It's a lot closer to his place, and he's now a regular at Lindy Groove.

Finally understand what SL wants to do musically during dances, but I'm a few years behind in my skill-set and knowledge of the songs. At the very least, I'd like to get someone to teach the lead for a half-time walkthrough

We get back to Brea pretty late, but trek to Dennys for a meal. Note to self: don't do that next time! :-)

20070713
Social dancing: Wow, I was tired at this point. Took off big blocks of time. My shirt dried off and everything. 40 minute vacation at one point! Left around midnight, exhausted. Should have left earlier. My dancing was suffering, my footwork was lazy, and I was probably pretty uninspiring to dance with from about 10pm on. Sad. I wonder if I can really do two nights of social dancing in a row without this happening. Same thing happened when I went to the Firehouse a few weeks ago...

People asked if the place was hotter than normal. I don't think it was, though it might have been more humid. It's a real problem for them. Along with the decision to not size up the water purifier (which leads to a lack of free, filtered water).

Classes:

Bal/Shag Routine (Jenny)
I keep forgetting to release for the spike-out. Yeesh. We do the choreography all the way to the drags, so perhaps this month we'll get to the end of the song. Well, maybe not, but perhaps we'll get farther than we've ever gotten before.

10-30 Count Moves (Aubri)
As usual, Aubri comes prepared with choreography.
Free Spin
from open, two handed hold, tuck left on rock-step, right on the first triple, spin left on the second, releasing left hand.
Spin to closed
rock-step, opening up, leading a rotational rock-step, flick towards lead, triple-cross-in-front, triple-closed
Tuck turn
Walk-through
switch hands and end in no-looky position (facing away)
Around the world
Double-tucking action, rock-step-tuck, triple-tuck, flicking triple (and lead half-turn)


Hijacks (Aubri)
A hijack is when the follow takes over the move from the lead. Aubri's husband, Michael, rotates through as a follow, so I get to do the hijacks as a follow with him (we switch off half-way through).

Tuck turn
On the 4, the follow step-preps for the turn, adding a forearm hold on the lead, and turns counter-clockwise on 5-and-6 (opposite of a normal tuck-turn).
Walk-through #1
On 3-and-4, the follow holds the lead's left hand like an axe, turns the move into 8 counts by bringing him around the left side on 5-6-7-and-8. So a slightly rotated chopping motion.
Walk-through #2
On 4, the follow signals a swing with the connected hand, and leads a lead-turn by swinging the hand in a clockwise (to her) "O" shape.
Circle Lead Change
On 5-6, the follow crosses the front of the lead, assuming the lead positioning, and over-rotating to get into the lead's starting position.

What was awesome was repeating the sequence as a follow once the follow had hijacked the lead on the circle lead change.

Jerry and Katie were around, but left some time during the hijacks class.


20070714
Team Practice

Aubri is instructing, and we work on technique again: Traveling swing-outs, paying attention to lines, formations, etc. Jerry, Katie, and Delilah come towards the end of practice, and Jerry talks to us for a bit about their future vision for the teams.

Later start time with socializing/meals afterwards
This idea makes sense since a lot of the staff are around at 2:30am, then need to be back before 10am for practice. Unfortunately, they float the idea of starting at 4pm and finishing at 7. My guess is that they're going to get push-back on this issue. Not much time for a social life outside of Atomic if Friday and Saturday evenings are consumed by teams. I wouldn't mind starting at 1pm. I just realized that I have no idea how long the Swing 2 team practices go.

"Re-formulating" Levels
Choreography Class where one just learns team choreography plus the level classes. AB would be for technique, Swing 1 to clean up the choreography, Swing 2 to clean up the next level of choreography (I think).

Return of the Pro Team
I assume this means a competition level team