New Teacher On a Monday

I cancelled a regular event so I could meet someone this week. As she had to pull out then I had nothing to do with my evening. Thankfully dancing was on tonight so I headed up there...

We had a returning teacher tonight. I've never been taught by her before and it was her first night back. I found she instructed well though the intermediate class was relatively simple and I was unsure about the ending on the third move. I'll get to that in a bit though. I haven't been to a Monday in quite a while. There were quite a few new dancers there. Whether that is because of the new year or the Monday caters to a slightly less advanced audience than, say, Thursday I'm unsure. Anyway after playing quite a bit at Route 66 tonight a few women looked a bit confused when I opened a lead for them. I did have some good dances tonight; I am worried that I'm not expanding my move repertoire as much as I could be. Though I think I'm much better at doing many of the moves I lead now I worry that I've got to focus on improving and incorporating moves that I'm weaker at. I've been working on my footwork moves though I'm still a pretty weak lead with them.

I got to do some double trouble with two lovely ladies who I don't think had done it much before. It was good fun though and it has been a while so it was good that I still remembered my limited array of moves.

Now That I Can Dance was on again tonight. I did bring it up at the end because I really don't want to hear it 4 times this week but I suspect I will. Otherwise there were some good tracks on tonight and some less good ones. I thought the set was alright.

Moves:

• First Move Walk. As you enter the First Move keep your left hand on your shoulder (I changed it to a butterfly grip to try and stop the woman anticipating and to make it easier to lead). Walk around for a couple of counts then continue as a regular First Move.


• Basket Cross Step into Left Handed Comb. Basket; as you bring the woman forward though extend her further forward so she takes her right foot very much in front of you. Lead her forward so she takes her left over her right (generally in a cross step but you can't guarantee this; you can cross step as well); she is now doing that directly in-front of you. As you guide her to face left, at some stage, let go with your right hand and return her under your left then take it straight into a Left Handed Comb.


• Double Handed Yo-Yo into Lunge Step. Start a Yo-Yo but offer your left hand in-front of you at waist level. As you execute the push-turn on the Yo-Yo take your left hand up as well (still holding on) and around the woman's head. When she comes to face keep turning her another 90° and turn as well so you are both facing the same way with your left hand at the left side of your waist and your right by the woman's right (ish). Lunge left leading the woman to do the same; as you do take your hand over your left shoulder. As you come back up you take your right hand over the woman's shoulder. At this stage we just sort of broke the flow of the move, rather than side your hand to the woman's hand on your shoulder instead, we just took our hands away and turned to face taking left to right. It was a fairly disappointing ending; it just stopped the flow. I've done this move before sans the weird ending; just to lazy to look it up.

Tags: Ceroc