Rich get richer…

June 1, 2006

Advanced with Sally & Chris

1,2,3,5,6,7 CBL end with double open hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 Copa/reverse CBL start with R-L going over and L-R at waist finishing with leader doing a hook turn (follower stays in place during 5,6,7 doing body roll or such) with R-L high and briefly letting go and keeping follower’s L hand behind her R waist [note: most people did not keep her L hand when I tried this later sometimes with a slight modification involving omission of the hook turn – in one such occasion, I almost broke out laughing] reconnect L-R by follower’s back R waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower forward – L-R comes up and R-L comes down during 2 1/2 clockwise traveling turn for follower with R-L briefly disconnected before reconnecting
1,2,3,5,6,7 This is another Copa – open break and bring follower forward with L-R going over leader’s head so that follower and leader are back-to-back and lead follower into 1 1/2 counterclockwise Copa free turn
1,2,3,5,6,7 start with L-R hold – flick off L-R on 2 and connect with R-L by 3 – lead follower into full traveling counterclockwise turn with R-L low for wrap (R-L at follower’s R waist)
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead follower forward on 1 and bring follower around 1/2 clockwise and switch to L-L – lead follower straight back on 5 and then over and under (result is something like a L-L wrap in front of follower’s R waist)
1,2,3,5,6,7 L-L forward then up and around while doing 1/2 clockwise turn (follower is led into 1/2 counterclockwise turn) into CBL position (open – switch to R-L?) then into 1 1/2 counterclockwise traveling (free?) turn for follower

followed by a simple shine

I suppose I had an interesting night of dancing. Most dances were pretty good and some were fantastic but all of them had some failed moves or other deficiencies. This is nothing new - in fact, occurrence of miscues from failed lead-follow communication is so common that I would become unnerved when everything goes well. Pretty much all of the missed moves were easy to do with some other followers, and there wasn't anyone with whom everything was easy. Another way of putting this would be that moves #1, #2, and #3 but not #4 or #5 would be easy with one follower while moves #4 and #5 but not #1, #2 or #3 would be easy with another follower. This probably means that my leads for these moves may be adequate enough to work with some people but not precise enough to work with everyone. Another explanation is that I am experiencing something that Sergio goes through a lot of the times (but I don’t think this is correct because the moves I was using were rather vanilla in my opinion). I suppose this might be nothing unusual – most good leads in Cambridge probably have some moves that they can use successfully with a very small number of followers.

I ended up staying for several songs after what turned out to be my last dance of the night thus missing dances for four songs from the Italian CD played by Vishal. Vishal saw me (not dancing) and said, “Now we just need to find someone for you to dance with.”

An observation - as people get better, they practice more whether it be for spinning technique, leading technique, body isolations or other fundamentals.