Boston Tea Party - Part I

So here I am at my first out of town Lindy-Hop event. I've already written about some of my out of town experiences with Balboa. In addtion, I've done the Leap Year Lindy Weekend, but that was across the street. So this is the first time that I've gotten to travel for, what has become, my primary form of swing dancing.



The travel part itself was surprisingly uneventful. This is amazing. I never fly anywhere without something going horribly wrong. That said, the trip to Boston's Logan Airport worked out just fine. I was on the plane with Jason, Emily and Jerry from Charm City Swing. Also, Bobby and Kate, two of my spectacular dance teachers, were on the flight as well. We also enede up running into some other friends of our, Elaina and Mark.



Anyway I'll skip all the hotel check in details as they were pretty standard. Onto the dancing!



The first class that I took is pretty much definitely going to be the most out there thing that I took this weekend. Well, out there for me, anyway. The class was a hip-hop dance class taught by a guy named Arjay. It was extremly different than anything else that I've done. It was crazy fun though. Lots of strange body isolations and other things that you just don't get in swing dancing. I actually had a very good time. Probably not something that I want to do on a regular basis, but definitely worth looking into now and again.



Class 2 was Rhythm and Syncopation variations with Kevin St. Laurent and Emily Hoffberg. Kevin and Emily taught the Leap Year Weekend in Baltimore. They are awesome. I'd actually say that they're probably the best dance teachers that I've had for a group class so far. They've really thought about all the things that are going on when you dance and explain in ways that are really funny and crystal clear. They start off with synchopated rock steps. Great stuff, but something that they already taught. Whatever, I'll take a refresher course from the best of the best. It worked out even better though, because that was just the warm-up. They moved on giving us a sychopated swingout variation that I've never done before. Basically, for the lead, I replace the late triple of my swinout with a kick-cross-over. The follow does as well. Then I hold, sinking back on counts 1 and 2 of the next swingout while the follow does a side scoot. Then we continue with the swingout as normal. If that made no sense: They taught something that was new, fun and hot looking.



Class 3 was a lindy routine class, taught by Dave Frutos and Kim Clever. I've never taken a calss with them, and routine classes can be pretty hit or miss, but this one was a definite hit. It was a cool thing with lots of charlestony stuff that really fit my style. It was a good choice for me. I'll definitely be incorperating stuff from it into my social dancing.

The next hour I took a class from Peter Strom and Ramona Staffeld. It was a tought choice because there was a Kevin and Emily class going on in another room. That said, I'm pretty happy with what I took. The class was called Hustle and Flow. They taught two variations designed for smoothness. One is a swingout with a strange handhold that morphs into this neat turn. I really like this move. It was immediately added to my sical dancing repotoir. The other was a change on the Texas Tommy. IT loos awsome, but I find myself always turning the wrong way. Whatever, what's the point of a workshop weekend if you come out of it without somehting to practice.

There's so much more to write about, but now I must be off to my dance classes for today.

I'll write again soon.