Anyway, I'll continue where I left off.
I leave lunch from hell and end up at my thrid class of the day. Mike's there, so I tell him all about the fiasco. This class is being taught by Erik Robinson and Sylvia Skyler (or Sylvia with no exclamation point). Both of them are apparently very famous dancers. If you've seen swing dancers showcased in a commercial or music video, they're pretty much always one of the couples. That said they weren't exactly great teachers. Thankfully, they were introducing lolly kicks and things that you can do after them. Lolly kicks are a Bal Swing move where the lead does a come-around and creates distance between himself and the follow. From there they start some showy kick-tab-kick-tap things with their left (for lead) / right (for follows) legs. For some unknown reason, I'm actually pretty good at lolly kicks. I didn't have any trouble learning them from Tim in the class that I took before I got here, so the fact that they weren't exactly explaining things well or slowly didn't hurt me as much as it could have. They also showed me the first brand new move that I've learned so far, turns in between lolly-kicks! I picked up the lead for outside (clockwise) turn really fast (it felt just like a tuck turn from Lindy), and the inside turn without too much difficulty. The problem with the inside turn is that the follow has to get her elbow over yours after turning. If I start the turn too close, or they're not good at this and start to late or go too slow, I get the follows elbow into either my face or chest. I managed to lightly get elbowed in the chin twice and hard in the chest once while Erik and Sylvia were,poorly explaining to the follows the technique for getting over the leads arm. They then tried to show how to use the inside turn to get out of lollies. This went worse than the other inside turn stuff since in addition to the old problems, now I have top step around them with opppoiste momentum for a comearound while the move is going on. The result is that I'm now stepping into the "Dangerous Flying Elbows (tm)." Needless to say, this one hurt until the follows picked it up. I'm still afraid to try this on the dance floor. Besides, I know a cooler, less dangerous way out of lolly kicks thanks to ...
Class number four! Bobby and Kate! Woopee! Bobby White and Kate Hedin teach the advanced Lindy Hop class in Baltimore on Wednesdays. They're really cool. In addition to being amazing dancers who've won competitions in nearly every from of swing, they're total goofballs. Bobby's teaching technique involves explaining things with sound effects. Pa-tcha-twag-ha! has come to mean a lot more to my lindy than I would have expected. Somehow, you still always know exactly what the guy means, when you're not too busy cracking your ass up. He also speaks deeper and slower whenever he's demonstrating something so you get a real slo-mo movie feel. Kate uses actual words, but is still fun. Plus she makes Bobby easier to comprehend when his sound effects aren't quite what he wants them to be. For example, one exchange that took place during class was:
Bobby - Crrrk doink!
Kate - That's his sound representing a spring.
Anyway, Bobby and Kate taught the throw-out, which is another Bal Swing move where you release the follow to create space, create tension with your outsie arms, and spin her back in the in the other direction while you do the second half of a come around her and grab her while you're mid-turn. It's another move that Tim taught us, but not somehting that I had down. After the Bobby and Kate lesson I felt really good with it. They also showed how to do it from lolly kick position as a way to get back into closed from lollies. This means I get elbowed in the face less. This means I like Bobby and Kate even more. The finished off by showing paddle turns which are basically scoots in a circle. Its another entirely new move, for which I was greatful.
One annying trend that's made itself apparent by now is that follows have been ditching the beginner track to go to more advanced classes. This is understandable, since if the lead is good, the follow doesn't need to actually know specific moves. So, they want to get to do more fun stuff, and dance with better leads. It's annoying for us though, since now instead of the class being an 18:22 follow to lead split, it's a 12:22 follow to lead split. This sucks. There's a lot of waiting to get to practice with a partner, and the partners who can actually follow have mostly all left. The fact that Bobby and Kate made this lesson work anyway is a testimant to how good they are as teachers.
That was the end of classes for day one. Mike and I walked over to the main balroom. It was time for the prelim rounds for the two amateur division competitions that are going on: the Jack and Jill and the American Classic Balboa Champoinship. Tim is competeing in the Amateur Jack and Jill, so we want to be there to cheer him on. Just for reference, to be considered an amateur, less than 40% of your income must come from dance realted activities.
The Jack and Jill competition is interesting. Leads and follows are randomly assigned to each other, and they dance. There are a few differend go throughts of this so that they can try to judge the competitors independent of their partners. I thought Tim did well, but ehat the hell do I know about judging dance competitions. The ACBC is more standard. Couples compete as couples. They break the competitors up into heats. In the first song for each heat, they dance Pure Bal only. No leaving body contact with your partner. The second song is Bal Swing. When each heat has gotten a chance to dance their two songs, they bring everyone out on the dance floor for an "All Skate." It's very fun to watch.
Dinner time!
Dinner is a "Dress to impress" event. It's the 82nd birthday of Bart Bartolo, one of the original Bal old-timers. There's decent food, and overall its fun. We get some nice picture of the Baltimore crew all dressed up and sitting together. There's excellent dessert, and since we picked a table right next to the dessert tabel, guess who got first choice of things before anything ran out. Oh yeah! Cheescake.
After dinner is one of the coolest events of the whole trip, the Champion level Jack and Jill. The competitors are the best of the best. The best Bal dancers from around the country vote on who gets to be in this event. Apparently, you have to be amazing to even get a ballot from Marty and Valerie (the event organizers). Bobby and Kate are competing, as are many of the other instructors, including Sylvia Sykes! Somehow there are more follows than leads selected. Bobby is the guys who gets to dance twice. He gets picked randomly out of a hat by Anne-Helene, who pronounces his name Boobie due to her accent. The announcers insist on calling him this for the rest of the event. It's vaguely appropriate. They're dancing is jaw droppiungly good. Wow! I'm getting goosebumps just remembering it.
After that is a dance with a live band. I've never seen so many people dancing Bal before. At normal social dances, you get almost everyone doing Lindy with maybe one or two couples doing Bal. But now, it's the All Bal Weeekend, so it's everywhere. I think that if you do a swingout, you get thrown out of the ballroom :) . I get to dance with a lot of people, and bravely try out all my moves. They actually work! I can do this Balboa thing. I'm massively better than I was Wednesday. This intensive workshop thing really helps!
At 11:30 or so is the prelim for the Open ACBC event, it's like the amateur event, exept that you don't have to be an amateur. Some great dancing gets done by the pros. Huge applause from the crowd. There's great energy in the room. When the round's over it goes back to being a socail dance. I dance for another hour before I retire to bed. At about 1, the band is supposed to leave and they keep running the social dance with a DJ until 6. Yeah, I'm unconcious by 1:30.
Next installment may have to wait until I'm home. I'm going to be dancing more today, and these diary things take a while. I hope that you're enjoying them.
-Ian
1 comment:
I'm curious about a couple things...
Do you still think that Erik and Sylvia weren't great teachers? Have you taken a class with them since you took this?
I think when I first began dancing I sometimes thought a teacher was bad when I really just didn't understand the overall concept of the class (and maybe that is the teachers fault, but maybe [and I think this is more likely] I think different than 90% of everyone else out there.)
It's kind of cool to go back on your account as you were learning things in the beginning. I wish I kept track of my progress and thoughts early on in dancing.
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