Good night, and good luck

July 13, 2006

Because there were twice as many men compared to women for the advanced class, I volunteered to join the intermediate class, which had more women than men. With 2 1/2 turn used for the third bar, the difference between the two seemingly were minimal – just one extra move for the advanced class. This type of situation has come up before, and I have volunteered to join the intermediate class before as well. However, this was the first time when it came down to it. As I said to Sally in previous occasion(s), it really doesn’t bother me one bit. I find that things could be learned or relearned from lower level classes all the way down to absolute beginners.

Intermediate - Chris assisted by Charlotte

1,2,3,5,6,7 open hold open break and bring follower forward on L side with her L arm stretched to side (into which leader’s waist lands) and leader does 1 1/2 free clockwise turn on spot around follower’s L arm/hand (while follower finishes with 1/2 counterclockwise turn like CBL) [note afterwards: I think this is potentially very awkward turn for leader. Given that it’s a clockwise turn, leader would want to pivot on his R foot for this turn. I think the easiest way to make this work is to do a hook turn footwork on 5 and the only way to make this work is for the leader to have already turned 1/2 clockwise by 4 meaning that the leader may want to start turning clockwise on 3 or very soon after 3]
1,2,3,5,6,7 crossed hold R-R on top and prepare and lead follower to a double turn (no touch and go) with R-R pushed inwards after the first turn to get R-R positioned arm-to-arm pointing upwards for both
1,2,3,5,6,7 (open break?) let go L-L and bring follower inwards and into traveling 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 counterclockwise turn with R-R coming down for the final turn to get R-R behind follower’s L waist – in this case leader travels along with follower to end up shoulder to shoulder facing the same direction [note: It is possible to end facing follower here and still end up with the position on 8 on next bar as I observed in last week’s LDA class. I talked about some similarities between LDA and Sally’s class, and Sally commented (quote here may be not exactly accurate), “Well. They are the ones from whom I learned from so that’s not surprising.” I also gave her a short demonstration of this week’s material partly in response to her query about how I liked their class while commenting that opportunities for practicing them are rare – I think I only tried it (unsuccessfully) with only one or two people (Jane and maybe Charlotte) tonight.]
1,2,3,5,6,7 start with Mambo jazz with free L hand on follower’s L shoulder and use the same L hand to lead follower forward on 5 and switch from R-R to L-R and bring L-R up to end behind follower’s neck (follower is positioned to L of leader with both facing same direction on 8)
1,2,3,5,6,7 allow follower to do back basic on 1,2,3 with both hands positioned on her shoulder and lead follower to her R on 5 (thus forcing follower to step across on her L foot) and lead follower to step back on 6,7 (follower is positioned to R of leader with both facing same direction on 8)
1,2,3,5,6,7 allow follower to do back basic on 1,2,3 while moving in front of follower – lead follower to free 1 1/2 clockwise turn while leader also does a turn [note: Another possibility is a move suggested to me by Sergio recently involving bringing follower back to leader’s L side followed by Copa.]

Speaking of Sergio, he and Natalie showed up fairly early tonight – I spotted them at the start of second hour. I joined their party, which also included Cyrille, for a meandering conversation lasting about an hour – after cleaning up a mess I created by breaking an ashtray. Topic of conversations ranged from World Cup to many things regarding Salsa (old histories, videos and video clips, music) and Cha Cha. It was particularly amusing to hear about what I perceived to be differences in opinions between Sergio and Natalie about Salsa music and dancing) being brought up in an amusing and deliberate manner. To satisfy my reader via satellite, yes we did talk about you too, Ivan. Of course, we talked about many others too – at least when people were able to remember everyone’s names (or pronounce each other’s names properly). By the way, our conversation was briefly interrupted by a query from an adjacent party about Cyrille’s name, which was followed by the requisite joke comment, “Okay. Now we can talk about you behind your back.”

I stayed until nearly midnight. I think I had about 16 dances or maybe more. I enjoyed many of the dances – in particular one with Natalie - probably my best dance with her to date and notable in large part because I thought she might have liked it more than usual.

Miscellaneous (mostly nonsense). Enrique is probably not DJing tomorrow – next week is more likely. Belated announcement – there will be rotation of teachers for Monday next week. August? Wrong. Peterborough versus Cambridge times two or three. Biggest criminals in Cambridge? Vishal shaken not stirred. I mused at one point that I had not even bothered to get one of my new Los Van Van CD out of its packaging (and thus have had no chance to listen to Temba Tumba Timba in private).