First update: Wednesday and Sunday's dancing lessons

[ailbhe]

On Wednesday I had a dancing lesson, as usual. I got singled out for a few pointers on technique. One - when waltzing, it's swoop rise rise, and which foot does which lowering / rising action is pretty straightforward to remember, except for my feet. Two - when jiving, keep -

Actually, that bit was painfully funny. He had myself and my dancing partner put our arms around each other's necks (I'm 5' tall; my dancing partner is 6' tall). Then he had us stand with one foot sloght behind the other, and transfer the weight from foot to foot by bending our knees. "I'm not meant to wiggle!" I cried in despair. "You were born to wiggle," the teacher assured me, firmly moving my knees and hips to where they oughta be. How he hasn't thrown me out for excessive frivolity in the face of dancing lessons I will never know. Anyway, the point of the exercise was to keep my center of gravity over my feet while moving my body in a suitably free-and-easy way for jive.

The Sunday lesson was odd; it was later in the day than it usually is, and a bunch of people who have recently been off competing were there. We did a lot of swoop-rise-rise in the waltz, and I learned that the swoop is a hell of a lot lower than it feels like it ought to be. In fact, the first time we got it right, it felt so like a lunge or a squat that I creased up again. At least I have a healthy sense of the ridiculous, even if no-one else could see what I found so funny. I also have to take bigger steps backwards; I keep treading on my gown when I do, though, so I need to work on this whole glide thing. I refuse point blank to wear heels. I will continue to refuse as long as possible. I refuse to believe that they are necessary, and thankfully no-one has tried to talk me in to them yet.

It was a hard lesson; it was very hot, to start with, and I was tired, and I worked hard (between hysterical giggling fits). I left it with many many bad-person feelings, so I went for ice-cream.