Take a Lap

I had a double lesson last night so I decided to skip the group class right before my lessons. Plus, the group classes have been unbalanced lately with more leaders than followers. Yesterday’s class was Peabody which I just picked up again and since very few people actually do it, I figured the class was going to be very basic.

So I show up in time to watch the end of the class. As the class was breaking up, somehow it came up that I do Peabody. PJ was teaching the class and then she made a comment about how I should have been there. Then she tosses out that since I wasn’t there, I should demonstrate some Peabody and many of the students agreed.

She tells me it will be our warm up for the lesson. So first thing we get to do a cold run of our little Peabody pattern. I didn’t mind though. I know they like to show people how a dance can evolve and grow and it is a way to maybe get people interested in adding another dance to their plan. And that can be a win/win because new dances can be fun.

The above quote is something I’m working on embracing. There are just times when I’m going to stand out whether I want to or not. Last night being one of those times because Peabody just kind of fits my skill set and I’ve certainly done it more than any of the students in the group class.

We ran through the Cha-Cha we are going to do on Friday and settled on where to end it. Then we spent a great deal of time on Argentine Tango. Working on making it look more like it should with a closer hold because there isn’t a lot of personal space in Argentine Tango. Yeah, that part can be a bit awkward.

The biggest thing is that she wants me to be able to improvise more – dance what you feel rather than just following the pattern. So we worked on some connecting steps and weight changes to make it clear where I want to go. We did add a couple of new patterns which include some flicks and things that are iconic to Tangos.

She’s described this as lego blocks. And you generally have two options. You can buy the kits which give you all the pieces you need and a plan to put them together to make something. Or you can just have a variety of blocks and put together whatever you want. The goal is to get closer to the second. Right now, I can just visualize being surrounded by hundreds of blocks with no clue how to put them together.

But she did manage to get me to just dance some freestyle towards the end of the lesson. Still a lot of thought involved trying to decide what piece to use next but I should look at the positive – she was able to follow everything I did so something was going right. The goal is be more comfortable with this when we get to the next Showcase and that’s seems doable.

There is a party tonight. Tomorrow night is the Snowball dance and Monday we have our last lesson for the year. I do think a little break will be nice and then we’ll just hit the new year hard.