Friday, November 19, 2004

Up and down

The week started well on Sunday at the Wharf. Natalie was teaching: someone I know who normally goes to O'Neills enthused about how much she'd learnt.

Not many people there for the free dancing, but Sarah, Natalie and Lucy together meant more good dancers than you often get at other nights, and it was nice to dance with good dancers with plenty of space. Though Natalie was practising her lead which cut down on the amount of time any of them were available (I didn't get to dance with her at all). Lucy is one of those dancers who always makes me dance better: she's so good and so 'neutral' that it's very easy to lead much more precisely than usual.

Got to the Toad at ten to ten last night, expecting to find the class about to end, and found that the second class hadn't even started. I joined in: again, some neat moves, but very difficult to do in such a crowded setting. And Nigel didn't really teach the lead. Well, what he did was teach a lead (for the one where you turn a woman by her shoulder a couple of times then she ducks under) that would work with a skilled dancer who knew it was coming, but which is not nearly clear enough for most people. I tried it out in the free dancing and only got it to work when I resorted to my normal lead for that move (much to the relief of my partner, who was delighted that she finally managed to follow it). (SEE COMMENT BELOW).

Stupid dodgems again - in the class one man clouted my partner on the back and didn't even notice, and in the free dancing (which didn't start until nearly half past ten) I found myself actually choosing to dance near Tarzan because he was less dangerous than the people in the other half of the room.

And Kate, please keep Nigel away from the decks...that version of Aisha was atrocious!

1 comment:

Tom said...

I've since realised that I did Nigel a bit of an injustice here. With a bit of practice the lead I complained about works really nicely and is a lot subtler than the one I used to use.