Dance Recital

It went well. I made a little bitty mistake at the end, but asking around, nobody seemed to notice. I definitely flirted with the camera throughout the piece, hehe. Hopefully the photos will come out well. :D

Grinning Uncontrollably

M complimented me on my wonderful expressions when I dance. Little does she know, the reason for my expressions is that knowing she's there, watching and smiling and enjoying herself, makes me grin so unbelievably much. Dancing on its own makes me grin a lot too. Hooray for grinning and dancing! :D

We're performing again on Dec. 12. I'm supposed to be front and center -- probably the only time I'll ever get to stand in front, due to my height -- because the piece is too free-form and non-rhythmical in parts, and someone needs to lead and set the pace. I'm kind of intimidated. Dancing in the back is kind of nice, because half the time, nobody can see you, and you can relax and just have fun. But front and center, that's everybody, audience -and- fellow dancers, all looking at you at least some of the time, wondering what's going to happen next. Skeery.

Wish me luck! :3

Disorganized Dance Discourse

So I've been slacking off about writing about dancing. At least I haven't been slacking off about actually dancing! :D

I'm now taking 3 classes in 2 evenings, so whenever I get home on Tuesdays, I promptly fall face-down on the ground, moan and groan and whine a lot, and generally refuse to move until it's bed time. Wednesdays I now spend wishing I were unconscious until dance class, whereupon I magically rediscover my ability to move sometime during warm-ups and drills... and promptly lose it again after class.

I wish I knew more girls in the South Bay whom I can drag to this new Wednesday class, since there are like, only 3 or 4 of us there, and it's all sad and lonely.

I found one of the songs that we use during warm-ups. This makes me more excited than words can convey. I guessed that maybe the song was at least partly in French, so I imitated some of the lyrics by ear to my hubby, who said, "Yeah, we can find that," and we did. I spent the next day listening to the song on repeat and singing along in my nonexistent French. It made me happy. :)

Dance Blog

Tuesday I was really out of it, and didn't feel like I got too much out of dance class. In my brain, I know that moving around is good for me, but in my body, I was tired and disoriented. balmy_fool had to drive me to and from class, because I was feeling so out of it.

Wednesday was much better. I was able to drive myself to and from class, for starters. There were a ton of new people at the class, so we had to switch places with the other class and move to the bigger studio to avoid collisions during class. After warm-ups, we shimmied again, for about 10-15 minutes. It was exceedingly painful, but I feel like maybe my shimmies are getting better. The new steps in the choreography are pretty hard, but only because they're so damn fast. Hopefully with repetition will come speed and precision. :)

Dance Blog

Last night, we started warm-ups not with a routine, but with .... miles and figure 8's. *dies* My back hadn't recovered from the previous week's drills, and starting right off with that was... singularly painful. After that, we went through the normal warm-up routine, stretching, isolations, etc. The instructor had been mugged by a sushi bar on her way to class, so every time we did ab exercises, she got this adorably pained look on her face and quit after just a few repetitions. It was terribly cute. XD

Since we had a new person in class, we did introductions again. When we got to the new person, she drew a breath, and very calmly stated that her name was "----". I blinked, parsed, and was happy, but the instructor had this hilarious blank look of astonishment. After staring at the new person for a few heartbeats, she very tentatively asked the new person how to spell the name. How is it that every face she makes is so darned cute? It's driving me to distraction.

When introductions were done, we drilled tiny hip circles. As the instructor put it, the difference between this and other dance styles is that in other dance styles, you want people to look at your hip circles, whereas in this style, you want to pretend to be shy, hide behind your hands, and be all like "Oh noes! Please don't look at my hip circles! *circle circle circle*". >.>;;;; Well, at least it was adorable when she demonstrated. ^_^

After drills, we moved on to choreography, by which I mean, we did shimmies for-fucking-ever, and then the instructor forgot about 4 measures of choreography in the middle of the dance. Tonight I think we'll "relearn" that part of the dance. Maybe we'll even get to move on. We're really close to the end, so I'm pretty excited for that. :)

All in all, I'm finding that doing the moves superficially is not too hard, but looking good while doing it is damnably challenging. I am having a fabulous time with this. :D

Dance Blog

Phew! Tonight was a hard night. In the first class, we did a really tiring arm drill, and a really challenging choreography. I felt like an uncoordinated and gawky kid again, which I haven't felt like in a few years. The moves are difficult, and need to be quick and precise to look good. I can do quick XOR precise, not both. :p Oh well, I hope in time I'll improve. :)

In the second class, we did the other kind of figure 8's (which are actually just called figure 8's, as opposed to the kind we did last night, which are called miles). Man. This stuff is really hard. I'm starting to appreciate its difficulty more after seeing some new girls really struggling to get the hang of the movements. I'm also extremely thankful that I seem to have some innate muscle control abilities to help me through. :D

The instructor ran off in a hurry at the end of the night to go perform at a 1-year-old's birthday party. I don't get the point of showing a beautiful dancer to a baby, but whatever. I guess the parents are super bored. XD Her costume, which she put on before she dashed away, was very pretty. <3

Dance Blog

<3 Squee! Warm-ups are a reliable source of sexiness and endless amusement. Also torment, pain, and difficulty isolating muscles, but that's a small matter.

Last night we drilled vertical figure 8's (miles). My lower back feels like a solid mass of anguish right now. I'm not very good at it yet, especially with the whole keeping-upper-body-still part. Walking and doing 8's at the same time is hilarious. There's a trick to it, where you figure out the optimal timing to move your feet, between doing parts of the 8. I think I got that part okay, but the 8 itself is still taking a lot of thought and concentration.

Choreography was really hard last night. I'm not sure if it was because I'm possibly getting sick again, or if I was just tired, or what. The spins made me really dizzy, and I lost my balance in places where I've basically never lost my balance. It's disconcerting. I also felt slower and clumsier than usual.

Amusing discoveries of the day include learning that the instructor is afraid of cockroaches, and is concerned that the roaches will sneak into her car and attack her. XD

Dance Blog

Added another dance class to my schedule. It's also very different from anything else I've done. Now I have two classes that are almost but not entirely unlike each other!

New instructor is short, fuzzy (his hair is cropped at about 1 inch, and stands straight up), and cute in a silly sort of way. After doing some basic exercises, he showed us a bunch of videos of people dancing in this style so that we could get a feel for how it looks in all its glorious variations.

First instructor is still sexy as all get-out. I don't think I'll ever get over that one exercise. It's so cute. :3 She also made us drill shimmies for five minutes straight. Gawd, that was painful. Towards the end, I stopped being able to really feel my legs. :< But! I got better at shimmies. I think. :D

Today, I can't really lift my arms. If I keep up this schedule, it ought to give me some nice muscle definition. :D

Dance Blog

Wee! <3 <3 <3

Tonight we did basic exercises again, including the adorable butt-jiggle exercise, the everlastingly frustrating rolls exercise, and the strangely exhausting chest- and hip-isolation exercises.

Then we did choreography forever. Forever. I now have that song stuck in my head on permanent loop, and my hips keep twitching in time to it. Hee!

The instructor continues to be adorable. I want to snuggle her.

Dance Blog

I went to a free trial dance class last night. This style is very different from the other styles of dance I've studied in the past. There were things the instructor did as a matter of course that had me dropping my jaw time and time again.

It took me a few minutes to get into it. The class started out with a warm-up dance routine, by which I mean the instructor queued up a song, started dancing, and everyone stumbled in her wake, some of us stumbling rather more than others.

After warm-ups, we did stretches and basic isolation exercises. The torso work had me completely baffled. Upper abs? Lower abs? It's all flab to me*! But eventually, I started to get it, and it started feeling really good.

We worked on rolls and "downs" when we had finished stretching, practicing each technique by walking in place, forward and backward, left and right, and finally in a big circle, again forward and backward.

At the end, the instructor taught us the first few pieces of a routine, and we all stumbled along behind her inimitable grace. Someone asked her to show us the whole routine, partly out of curiosity, and partly due to laziness, I think. The instructor obliged, a vision of loveliness and feminine allure.

To cool down after the class, we did a little dance-stuff, and a little stretchy stuff. In the glow of a good workout, I didn't notice at first, but when I sat down in the car to go home, I realized the extent to which my muscles were sore. I figured if I stuck with it, maybe in time I could look that good.

* Of course, you know that I have remarkably little flab. But well. It doesn't help with the feeling of bewilderment.