Bluesalicious Retrospective

I snapped out of my Saturday evening funk and had a very nice time for the rest of Bluesalicious. I was much more “on” the second night, which was nice. I finally figured out the disparity between my dancing experience this year and last year. Last year I felt like every dance was a life-changing experience – I learned something every single time I went out on the dance floor. This year I didn’t have that… and I realized it’s because I’ve become a better dancer since last year. When the only place you have to go is up, of course you can learn from everything.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. In addition to dancing I did a bit of geocaching, which was fun. One of these years maybe I’ll manage to find a Memphis hotel that isn’t god awful.

Notable leads: anyone from Austin, Texas. In particular: Reed, who I danced probably 15 songs with and who had a super fun relaxed lead with room to play. Also Clint, who is still fun to dance with even if his body rolls aren’t quite as smooth as last year (or maybe that’s just my back?). Matthew, from who knows where, but I had a super fun side-walk dance with him. Same guy who made me blush with micro blues last year, but he didn’t remember me and I didn’t remind him. Tyler (and the entire Purdue group) was great as well – I realized that last year he was the first guy shorter than I am that I danced with confidently. All 3 Jeffs that I danced with were great fun, as well. I definitely got lead in some dips and drags that were totally new to me this year.

Continuing to work on lead matching and turns. Need to smooth my doubles out a bit, as they’re hitching in the middle at the moment. Also need to figure out what’s wrong with my pirouettes with regards to balance – I’ve been trying to keep my free leg up longer so I can kick through the end of the turn, but it’s proving difficult. Back and knees behaved in a so-so fashion – some pain, but no swelling, which is a plus.

This weekend is the ATLX late night and Boulevard Blues in Macon, both of which I am anticipating greatly. Also, need to wrap up a quick Sweet Molasses Blues post, as I’ve been putting it off. My next big event isn’t until Show Me Blues in June, but I have 2 Soul Shakers shows and 2 Boulevard Blues to tide me over until then!

Enter the Blues: Do it Yourself Weekend 2010

Late last year the coordinators for Enter the Blues announced that this year there would be not one, but TWO Enter The Blues(es). Numero Uno would focus on dances and mini-classes with an emphasis on setting up your own private lesson, while Numero Dos would be the full on, blow out weekend. I shan’t speculate too hard on whether the February date just crept up on them too quickly, so they knew they needed to throw something together fast to appease their fans.

Anywho, as usual my body wasn’t willing to dance 7 hours a night on top of classes, so I skipped classes and just stuck to dancing. My knees and back behaved better than they have… basically ever, since all my aches and pains started. I’m getting stronger, hooray! The weekend itself was a bit of a blur – I housed 9 people, including Seattle Josh and Patrick & Beth from Macon. It was fantastic, and lots of excellent conversation occurred in addition to the dancing.

The other notable lead for the weekend (outside of the obvious choices of Patrick and Josh) was Chris from Florida, who I originally met at Blues and Soul 2. Gods, such a blues crush do I have on him. We probably danced 6 dances Saturday night; we just move so incredibly well together. Heavenly.

I have a few dancing things I was working on over the weekend.
• About a month ago at Northside I started a dance with John and his light flowy frame made me realize that I’ve been getting really tight and heavy the last few months. This is mostly due to dancing with Bert – we dance amazingly together, but the thing that allows us to do Cool Stuff ™ is a connection largely based on counter-balance. I realized that over the months my frame has gotten tighter and tighter to accommodate that… even when I’m not dancing with Bert nor asking for counterbalance. I corrected the problem right away – so abruptly that after the dance John remarked that it was the most relaxed he’s ever felt me. It was like flipping a switch… and I spent a lot of the weekend making sure that flip stayed switched.
• In addition to keeping my frame lighter, I’ve started focusing on lead matching again. So hard. So worth it.
• Dancing with Patrick at Statesboro Blues made me realize I’ve been playing grabby-hands, often coming back into a close closed position when I haven’t been asked. I’m not sure what cause that habit to develop, but I imagine it has something to do with trying to stay clear of drunks at Northside. I manage not to do it if I’m paying attention, but it will take a few weeks to really break the habit.
• The bit of Westie I’ve been dancing has made me realize a few things about turning. First of all – I basically always pirouette, and maybe ¾ of the time I style by crossing my feet. I almost never step through my turns, and when I do I always travel. I haven’t been taking the opportunity to do doubles when they’re offered. That’s a big pile of stuff to work through. For now I’m just trying to pay attention when I turn so I don’t always default to crossed-pirouette, and also to take doubles more often on free turns when I have the momentum. Patrick was very obliging on the latter item, occasionally refusing to take me back until I had turned twice. Bastard.

I had planned to list a few things that I want to start working on going forward, but that’s kind of a big pile already. Maybe I won’t add branches to an already blazing fire… I’ll just keep working these things. I’ll have lots of opportunity this weekend at Sweet Molasses Blues in Boston!

Follower's Footsteps - Week 1

Hmm, I suppose I never got around to writing up a physical therapy post, complete with lists of home-exercises. Ah well, I think they're pretty well ingrained in my head at this point.

Anyway, I started a 4 week class series last thursday, and it was Damn Excellent. It's called "Follower's Footsteps" and it's an int/adv class focused on women and spicing up our dancing. Sadly, I'll only be able to go to 3 of the 4 weeks.

The class size is absolutely perfect - 4 women plus Evin, who is teaching. It's free for leads, and we actually ended up perfectly balanced last week. Ideal! One of the leads is Evin's husband... whose name I totally know, and remembered last week in spite of only having met him once... but it's gone from my head now. Stupid brain. Anyway, he's SO fantastic to dance with, and a fun guy to boot. He gave me some really great feedback on how the different things we tried in class last week felt from a lead perspective.

Right, so, last week we worked on loosening our frame - how long have I been working on that now? My problem is that even if I start loose, I tighten up the longer I go. Just need to keep concentrating and practicing. Anyway, using said loose frame, we worked on a swing out variant that involves kind of walking into your arm, almost like you're clotheslining yourself. This creates an interesting shape, and leaves you room to play with your feet and body isolations some. It's very essential to keep that nice loose frame thoughout, because if you're loose you can really communicate to your lead that you're doing something different, just in the way that your hand creates weight and counter-balance. If you're too tight, the "sproing" of the swingout doesn't change, so he'll be less likely to leave you the play space you're asking for.

We mostly focused on taking the time and improvising, but Evin did give us one specific bit of footwork to try - it basically amounts to a sweep-step on 6 and a pivot with a little bobble-step on 8 to get back in place.

Next week: Tuck Turns!

Graveyard 6.11.08

Went to graveyard last night and had a lovely time! I hadn’t planned on going, but I got all my housework and chores finished, so I figured a little dancing was in order to help shake off the post Buenos Aires Blues blues. So silly to be blue after so much dancing, but whatcha gonna do?

Anyway, the band didn’t start until late, but the DJed music was pretty good. I had a nice warm-up dance with Adam – I feel like I finally comported myself well dancing with him. I don’t know what my issue was the first couple of times, but my quality of following was definitely not in-line with his quality of leading. I’m very glad we finally got synched up.

My goal for the evening was to focus entirely on following well. I made a few opportunities to introduce styling and footwork, but overall I really wanted to concentrate on my posture, the tension of my frame, and really listening to my lead. I think it did some good, as I had some excellent dances, and a lot of the opportunities for improvisation followed naturally. I don’t remember struggling or feeling like a did something off the whole night, which is always an accomplishment, and my dancing was much more relaxed as a result. I had a particularly lovely dance with Juan, which is a change from the norm, as I often feel like I’m fighting his lead due to some timing differences. I’ll have to see if I can keep that up.

Oh, I knew I had one concern for the night – dancing with Bert is always fabulous, but I’m having some dipping issues lately... ending up putting a foot back for support instead of stretching it out, or ending up with my body out of line. It happened a couple of times last night and I’m trying to identify why... I think I might be worrying too much about throwing my weight around. I dunno.

BYoB 6/3 Addendum

Oh yeah, I meant to note that my elbow was hurting me pretty bad in the tendon last night, which probably means my frame was a lot too heavy. Need to keep working on transferring the weight of that into my back (which is also killing me, but in a good way, rather than an upset-ligament way).

Posture, dammit!