Saturday Night Party And Stuff

Yes, I really am still going to post about Southport. If I can remember anything that happened. Bet you are all sitting at the edge of your seats waiting.

Was at the Edinburgh Saturday Night Ceroc party on Saturday. Got there quite early... by quite early I mean before 10pm which is good in my books. Now maybe I've mentioned this before but I've been having problems with my ankle and knee for a while now and, along with making me feel like an old man, it means I try and be cautious while dancing avoiding any large leans or drops. As I felt my knee get painful on the night I really cut back on the footwork I was doing or any moves that might be bending that knee. I'm going to get to a physiotherapist at some stage in the near future but for now I'm going to take the informal advice I got from another physio.

Anyway that aside the evening was rather good. I'm trying to smooth out my lead more at the moment and quite a few women commented on it as delightful which gave a lovely warm feeling inside. Also there were some women up from that England place (they were there for a workshop that was cancelled which must have annoyed them). They commented that us Scottish boys seems a lot more stylish than those back home. I wonder whether that is true and, if so, it has something to do with the fact that many of the guys up here are very stylish and that raises the bar for the rest of us meaning that we work on style more too.

The music was a little too fast for my liking. I was hoping it would drop into a more bluesy set later on but it never really came. Other people seemed to like the set more than me so perhaps I was missing something or just looking for something else that never came.

Though it wasn't quiet by any means it was quieter than it often is and there was a lack of the people I often look forward to dancing with from the rest of Scotland :'(.

So I did have a good time. That was added to by it being the one year anniversary of my girlfriend and I. She requested a track for the twilight dance which was lovely.

Scottish Competition 2006 and Britrock 2006

I figured I'd just bundle the two competitions that I recently entered into the same post.

Well the Scottish Competition was my second competition. Due to the fact I injured myself a while before and wasn't able to dance for a while I didn't enter into role reversal or intermediate as I originally planned. I did enter into Lucky Dip though I didn't get anywhere. I found the Friday night party a bit lacking. I don't know why but I did. Saturday daytime was quite good. The pacing was good in the event with plenty of freestyle in between the events and it was enjoyable to watch a lot of the other people compete. I had a great time on the Saturday night and enjoyed the addition of the blues room. I felt a little of a blues room hotshot in regards to the fact I pretty much moved to the blues room when it was open and stayed in there all night (which is more surprising because my favourite DJ was in the main room).

I had a friend from Aberdeen staying on the Saturday night. The car journey home was certainly interesting


Anyway I also recently went to another competition down in Brighton. This time it was mainly to do a team cabaret that I had been rehearsing for. Before I went down I was a little nervous about it. I still feel I didn't quite have it all together and I felt I could have done with more practice time.

We won in the end. It certainly felt close. Amir had another team entry (though he wasn't in it) and they were very technically precise. They didn't do any team formations or such like which we did a lot of. Their approach was very different to ours, I guess, and it really depended on what the judges were looking for. Anyway I thought the other team did very well. It was interesting to see them do the beginning of their routine though as it is what Amir uses to teach one of his musicality classes.

You can, maybe, see the back of us dancing at:



The Friday night started with tracks that constantly ran into each other (like at a night club). This was rubbish as it made my I'll ask that woman to dance on the next track statement difficult to carry out and meant that when I did finally ask someone we kept dancing until we finally sort of just gave up. Thankfully that ended soon enough to let us get on with enjoying the rest of the night.

There was a fun class with a line dance (which was quite good fun) and a ceilidh (which was amusing given we were in the South). I also got picked on for not keeping the teacher straight when he got it wrong. That might have something to do with the fact that I was wearing a kilt on the Friday.

The freestyle on the Friday got better as the night went on and I was definitely enjoy it by the end. Dancing in a kilt was good fun and kept me cool (except for the ceilidh top which got very warm and later on I changed into a T-shirt). Enjoyed dancing with one new dancer in particular and had the last couple of dances with her.

The competition was quite good fun. Did Dance with a Stranger and Intermediate. We didn't get anywhere in either though that might have something to do with the fact that I always seemed to end up with my butt facing the judges or maybe just the fact that I wasn't dancing very well. There were some really great dancers there though and they were good to watch.

Loved a few of the showcases; in particular Amir's routine which was graceful and amazing. I've seen his performances on the Jango DVD but they weren't as impressive as the one I watched there. He got a standing ovation at the end and it seemed the most popular showcase though didn't win. I found this a little bit of a crazy decision by the judges but maybe I was missing something.

The day came to a bit of a stop for a while when there was a wedding service in one of the other rooms (downstairs) and our organisers felt that we made to much noise and would disturb the vows. As far as I could tell this was the Britrock people rather than the venue pushing for this and that was really considerate of them. The couple came up afterwards and did a dance for us which was lovely and really brave of them to do.

The early evening got of to a really bad start. After a bit I went back to the hotel (where I caught a bit of Strictly Come Dancing where they apparently were doing West Coast Swing though I'm sceptical to say the least). Got back and had a much better evening (including a few dances with another lovely dancer from down South). Was pulled away from the dancing to dress up for the cabaret (in case we won as we had to do it straight after the awards) which resulted in me missing so many great tracks :'(. Thankfully that was over with and other than possibly one of the worse performances of the cabaret I've done it went ok. Had such a lovely time for the rest of the evening with so many lovely dances with lovely dancers. I am glad it finished when it did though since my legs were aching and I had to get up early the next day to get back to Edinburgh.

Being A WCS Demo

I've still got the Scottish Competition, Southport and Red Hot and Blue to catch up on for last month and this. I'm sure I shall at some stage but these things take time...

Anyway last night I was the demo at the WCS last night. I've never done any form of demoing (at dancing) before and I always assumed, if I did, it would probably be a modern jive event since I quite good at MJ (I'd say intermediate anyway) whereas I consider myself a beginner at WCS. There are certainly better dancers who attend on a weekly basis and though being a teacher or demo shouldn't be about whether you are a great dancer having a much better understanding of the dance is.

It got worse as someone who doesn't really do classes (he tends to have private tuition instead because he is passed what classes cover) came along. I'm not really sure what information I can give someone like that.

Anyway despite my nervousness I think I did ok. For some reason I also ended up walking through some of the footwork and doing some of the calling out (including counting people in and calling out the moves). I didn't really get to dance with that many people either though the teacher is very good and it was a joy getting to dance with her.