The Dance Team

I’m really not feeling it today. Was going to write something yesterday but it was a damp and cold day and I just couldn’t get motivated. I love foggy mornings but something about fog and mist and cold temperatures doesn’t agree with me. You just feel chilled all day. And I’m like one of those old timers “I can feel it in my bones”.

Plus I’ve got a headache that won’t let up. It woke me up around 2:30 this morning and I actually got up to take some stuff and have some coffee. Why coffee? Well I know the caffeine helps and my coffee consumption isn’t what it used to be. It doesn’t keep me from sleeping but I got back up again around 6 because I just couldn’t stay in bed.

The dampness doesn’t help and now that it got colder, all the places have the heat on and I’m sure that is blowing dust all over the place and that’s no help at all. I did get to the gym this morning and, while I was exercising, the headache kind of went away. But, like the Terminator, it came back.

I had my first official lesson with my new instructor last night. I’m still going to be working with JoNY but, as discussed with OwnerGuy, I’m going to be taking lessons with another instructor as well. OwnerGuy was telling me that one advantage of having two instructors is that if one is sick, the other might be able to keep the lesson. Turns out that is what happened last night because JoNY was down again.

I’ll have to come up with a decent character name. For now, I’ll just go with Teacher2. Z was warning me that she wanted to talk about dance goals and plans and all that. You know I’m not a planner so that was an interesting conversation. I think we’ll focus on picking up some of the standard dances like Quickstep but I also want to eventually loop her into the patterns I do with JoNY because I think getting another take is a good thing.

We talked about the various levels and checking out. I said I don’t have a problem moving from Silver III to Silver IV but I’m not one who needs to check that box. Plus, I want to feel like I’ve earned it so I’m not on a specific timetable. Now, I need to check my own perfectionism because, if I listened to that part of me, I’d still be back in Bronze thinking I’m not ready to check out. So we’ll see how that goes.

As a short term goal, we are working towards Showstoppers in mid December. I originally thought of doing Waltz with her but, I couldn’t help myself, I said I’d rather do Quickstep. I love Waltz but Quickstep is just too much fun and if I’m going to pick a dance to show off, the Quickstep is better than the Waltz.

So we just reviewed some basic figures and practices a few other things just to try em on. I did do some hop step things which my knee didn’t really like so I’m not sure how that will go. But she also talked about doing just a run across the floor and ending in some kind of line. This appeals to me. It would be kind of dramatic if we just ran across the floor and then slid into some kind of pose. Yeah, I’m all about the show.

We booked several lessons up through Showstoppers so we have time to put something together. The studio playlist of Quicksteps needs work. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve got all the classics and some of them are great songs. But I don’t do classic. If I’m going to perform, I want everything to stand out – including the music. Yes, this is that weird side of me that wants to draw attention to myself. Why be ordinary? Not typical introvert behavior, but I think I just become someone else when I do one of these.

OK, I’m going to call it a post here. My head it making it hard to think.