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!

Statesboro Blues 2010

After taking most of January off to let my back recover and settle down, I kicked off the 2010 blues event calendar with a trip down to Statesboro. The Swing Cat Society affiliated with Georgia Southern University put together a 2 day event – Friday night dances, 5 hours of classes on Saturday, and Saturday evening dances. The classes were specifically geared towards blues beginners, taught by Evin and Huy.

Originally I was dithering about whether to go down. Though I love Evin dearly, I’ve done beginning blues with her a few times now and wasn’t really interested in a long drive for another repeat class. Eventually Bert convinced me to go, since he was DJing and it sounded like a few ATL folks would make it. I set about pestering a few non-dancer friends about going, and managed to sucker both RJ and Ross to accompany me. Seeing as how I’ve been trying to get basically any of my non-dancer friends to get into blues for a while, this was a big win.

I could ramble on, but the short of it is that I had a blast. The level of dancing was a little on the low side (surprise, surprise, beginner workshop!) but there were plenty of more advanced leads to keep things interesting. Many of the beginning dancers were also very fun to dance with – a lot of folks had lindy background and strong fundamentals, and therefore took to blues like fishees to water.

Notable leads:

• Steve from Florida made it up, and he’s always fabulous to dance with. He makes me move in ways that I didn’t actually know I could move – sometimes I’ll be dancing with him and all of the sudden be dipped in a direction I’ve never dipped before. Never had a dance with him that wasn’t excellent. I repaid him for his awesomeness by clocking him in the face during a dance where he and Bert were trading me off… but it serves them right for using me so cruelly.
• Cole was probably the best “beginner” blues dancer I met. His drag blues were fucking incredible, even though he swore it was his first time doing any blues at all. I felt like we moved around the floor like one person – it was wonderful.
• Patrick from Macon was my other pleasant surprise of the weekend. It sounds like we’ve been to a few of the same events but never managed to intersect until this time around. He’s been trying to put together a monthly blues dance in his hometown, and after meeting him this weekend I’ll definitely be trying to make it as often as possible. Not only is he a super-fun guy whose tastes parallel mine (blues varietals, scotch, women…) but we also have great dance-chemistry. I can’t really point to one single thing that make our dances together awesome, but as a whole we just “click.”
• So I don’t forget again: Charlie is Megan’s husband who I met a Christabel for the first time. Very very impressed by how fast he’s coming along, and he’s a nice guy to boot.

So much for not rambling! Phew! Anyway, the weekend was phenomenal. My knees and back behaved fairly well, though I kept myself dosed with advil most of the time. Megan & Emily did a stellar job putting it together the event, and everything went smoothly. Hooray first blues event of the year!

Nemoe's West Coast Swing Night

Ok, I'll admit it. I've always through WCS was a little creepy. Maybe it's just because the few WCS leads I've danced with have been on the skeezy side. There was one guy at Buenos Aires Blues 08 that was just... eugh. I now take it back and forever repent my stereotyping ways.

Bert has been bugging me for a while to check out the WCS night at Nemoe's. It's right next to my house, so I pretty much have no excuse. Sunday I went and checked it out - and had a freaking blast. The beginner class got me in the groove of the step pattern, and from there my lindy-background took over. Once I got out on the dance floor I was prefacing my dances with "I warn you - this is the first time I've done West Coast" but I quickly discovered that this wasn't really necessary. Several of the leaders gave me shit for it, too (or called me a natural, which seems like cheating on my part)!

Anyway, I had a great time. Dancing WCS is a nice step back from lindy - I really like the relaxed feeling and the welcoming environment. The music is fun, ranging from swing and blues to pop and funk. The biggest challenge so far is stylistic - WCS is smooth and slotted, where Lindy is bouncy and round. Damn if it's not hard to keep the bounce out of my step, even in blues-mode.

I think I can say my Sunday evenings are spoken for in the foreseeable future.

Swing at the Speakeasy

The directions are oblique. The venue doesn’t really have a name. The approach is sketchy – go to a busy street corner, through a squeaky metal gate, and walk down a dingy flight of stairs. Knock 3 times on a nondescript metal door. Give the doorkeeper the password, and if you’re on the guest list he’ll let you in. Step inside from the dark stairwell… and enter a long low room, paneled in dark wood, draped with red velvet curtains, and stuffed with plush, dark leather chairs.

Sure, it’s not a “real” speakeasy – there’s no prohibition, the venue doesn’t change, and there’s really no reason to keep the place hidden – but it’s fun to have a secret. And the venue is well worth keeping all to ourselves; the decor and ambiance are absolutely stellar. I wasn’t a huge fan of the band that played the first week (lots and lots of songs that were faster than I wanted to dance) but the last two weeks a blues group called Tin Pan has played. While they do throw in some faster songs to appease the lindyfolks, they also play some damn fine blues.

Other highlights include the fact that the bar has the Ron Zacapa 23 as well as a couple of varieties of Glenmorangie, and the adorable girl behind the bar remembers me every week and pour generously just for me. My one complaint for the venue overall is that because it is small it gets very, very crowded and very, very hot. Still, it’s definitely worth it for the ambiance.

I was bad and didn’t write down notable leads the first two trips, but this time I want to make sure to remember Charles (slightly older gent with a wonderful springy lead and a penchant for leading convoluted but strangely easy to execute turns and swingout variations) and Kevin (mid-twenties, quite tall, big guy – doesn’t look like he’d be an amazing dancer but damn if he doesn’t have a wonderful light, flowy, effortless lead). There was also a guy all dappered out who I had a fabulous blues dance with – he was a big fan of tango-inspired dips, which made for a very intense song.

Anyway, hooray for awesome venues! With the little taste of New York Blues that I’ve gotten at this event, I can’t wait to see what Blues Blaze is like.

CHEX 09

I had already signed up for the Charleston Lindy Exchange when I had my lindy/blues epiphany back in April. Luckily I had a good friend in Charleston, so I formulated a plan to go visit him and only show up to CHEX for the Friday and Saturday late night dances.

My plan worked out quite well. Around 11:30 I'd leave the house, putter over to the dances, dance until 2 or 3, then head back. I spent the days socializing with Carroll and seeing some of his Charlestonly haunts, as well as just relaxing and taking it easy. The level of blues dancing at CHEX was somewhat lower than ATLX, though I think that was mostly due to the smaller attendence. I did have a few notably good dances: A bunch with Wesely, who is in ATL and I now have saved on facebook, one fan-fucking-tastic dance with Kirk from NC, several with Will & Claire's friend who now lives in Dallas but whose name I can never freaking remember, three with a fun asian dude (Josh?) who really let me improvise a lot, and two with Steve from Orlando.

I won't lie - I was vaguely considering going to Blues N Soul in Orlando before... but once I danced with Steve that pretty much sealed the deal for me. If I can monetarily pull it of - I'm going to Orlando.

My knees behaved pretty well over the trip, mostly due to plenty of ice, less dancing than usual, and plenty of ibuprofen. They went all weekend without hurting much though, which is a nice thing.

Next up: either Blues N Soul, or the Portland Blues Experience in July!

Hot Jam - 12/01/08

Woo! Had a freaking fantastic night of dancing last night – best night at Hot Jam in a while. Also, incidentally, my first trip to Hot Jam in several months – I didn’t realize what I had been missing. Things to remember from the night in notation form and no particular order:

• Had another great dance with Les, a guy I danced with at Graveyard last week. Super fun, excellent lead, and gives me plenty of time to play. Also grins and seems to appreciate when I play, which is always nice. We did contrive to send my glasses spinning across the floor at one point, but I recovered them before they got stepped on, which was a relief. Really need to get new glasses that stay on my face.
• Danced 3 songs with Daniel, a tech guy I met at AVS. He’s just learning lindy but he has a good 6-count foundation so he leads nicely enough. Needs to stop counting and appreciate the music though ;P Had a funny conversation with him while dancing because he and Benjy both pulled an odd move on me. He lead it well enough, but it was different enough to catch my attention – turns out someone taught it at a class a couple of weeks ago.
• Saw Pretty-Boy-Fletcher again, who I also met at AVS. After the first Andrew Sutton class at AVS he and I practiced a bit and it was really good, but last night his lead was really, really tense. Super sad L
• Speaking of, I had a pretty rough dance with Robert, too, which is a shame. His lead was a lot stiffer than I wanted, and we kept bumping on free turns (probably my fault, but still). Made me sad, because I want to have goo dances with him!
• On the bright side, Leigh Ellen from KLX is moving to Atlanta! Whee! Yay for girls that I get along with. We also danced together, which didn’t go great, but mostly because girls (apparently) make me all shy and clumsy.
• I also danced with a new guy named Shaun (sean?). He was good, though our first dance was a little awkward due to space constraints and my being determined to bump into the fireplace. He came to ask me for another dance later though, which is always both encouraging and promising.
• Oh, also re-met Bryan from AVS (tall lanky guy, shaved/short hair, big beard). Didn’t get to dance with him, but wanted to note and remember his name.

Anyway, bottom line is that I had a fantastic time. My knees were a little tired but not too achy by the end of the night, though my right ankle was hurting some. I was a good girl an iced when I got home, so today my legs are fatigued, but don’t hurt much. Whee!