More festivities on a Thursday night

November 23, 2006

Intermediate/Advanced combined? with Sally

L-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower in and lead her into 1 1/2 clockwise traveling turn with R hand on follower’s L shoulder with leader turning full clockwise on the spot as follower is finishing her traveling turn to end with L-R ending up on follower’s L shoulder and R hand preferably on or underneath follower’s R arm close to her shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 allow follower to step backwards on 1 as both of leader’s hands get under each of follower’s arm so that her arms can be tossed upwards (to get her arms into diving position or similar) on 2 – move to follower’s L side as follower’s is led straight backwards on 5,6,7 with hands on follower’s waist
1,2,3,5,6,7 using R hand on follower’s R waist, lead follower into doing a hook turn behind leader on 1,2,3 – then lead follower forward on leader’s left side and into a 1 1/2 traveling clockwise turn – get back into closed hold and…
1,2,3,5,6,7 into closed hold and simple CBL end with R-R hold
1,2,3,5,6,7 lead a touch-and-go double turn for follower
1,2,3,5,6,7 leader turns 1/2 clockwise with L-L high briefly and bring all connections down to waist level – while keeping follower in place, first establish L-R on leader’s L waist followed by connecting R-L on leader’s R waist [but do not shake hips and do the Macarena]
1,2,3,5,6,7 open break and bring follower under arm on leader’s L side – then lead follower straight back into traveling full counterclockwise turn with L-R low to get L-R behind follower’s L waist and switch to R-R
1,2,3,5,6,7 offer L hand in front to establish L-L while getting into CBL and lead follower into 1 1/2 traveling counterclockwise turn with leader almost overtaking on her R side to get ready to place follower into handcuffed position
1,2,3,5,6,7 get follower into handcuffed position but instead of getting around follower counterclockwise completely, return to original position by 3 – lead follower to step forward on 5 and then lead follower straight back into a counterclockwise (?) turn (more or less stationary turn) using L-L for the lead with leader turning 1/2 counterclockwise to end with L-L over leader’s L shoulder
1,2,3,5,6,7 do the SuperMario’s version of bringing L-L down and switching to R-L behind leader’s back while moving to L of follower, then lead follower into 1 1/2 free traveling counterclockwise turn [note: tonight’s class version focused mostly on getting to the L side of follower whereas SuperMario’s version involves a slight step to R with a crossing over behind R foot on 1 - this might help with bringing down L-L smoother]

I was a bit late once again. It looked like the Intermediate and Advanced classes were combined.

For the social part of the evening, I started off dancing with three or so people from second hour’s class. Then the pattern changed quite a bit as Merecumbe (presumably the Los Titanes version) came on and I asked Nicola to dance with me. This started off a series of increasingly experimental freestyle dances, which reached their height of nuttiness with Stephanie and Agnes. In fact I told Agnes in our last dance together that I was going to try to confuse her as much as possible (as well as confuse myself – within seconds of making this statement, I managed to confuse her by a very dodgy/hesitant/uncertain lead… On the whole what I did was not to lead anything out of ordinary (I didn’t even lead a broken left turn) but to try to lead from as many different angles and with many changes of the line… also the number of multiple spins were significantly greater than usual). What I did not tell Agnes was that the dance before the last one was arguably more bizarre; for the much of the song, I was watching Sergio dance with Lindsey and tried to imitate their turn patterns one bar of music later (without too much success of course). Needless to say, it made the dance a bit silly and probably highly confusing for Agnes (perhaps it's a wonder that she agreed to dance with me again to the song that came on immediately thereafter).

Cyrille’s birthday dance happened fairly early in the evening. El Pito played by Isidro Infante was used. Jane started as Cyrille’s first partner. After having been accused of being responsible for spreading the information by Sergio, I thought I might as well complete my part by prompting various women at the club to take part in the birthday dance. I think all in all, 7 people took part. Most gave token resistance to taking part, but some others declined or resisted mightily. In particular Stephanie, who is as slam-dunk candidate to take part in this dance (Rajiv obviously had the same thought), was very difficult to convince; I thought I used up more energy trying to drag her onto the dance floor than I would usually spend having a fairly intense dance. In the end, she did dance with him but only for 3-4 bars of music at the very end of the song.

The most amusing sight was Steve and Adam dancing as if they were conjoined twins. I have seen them do a three-some dances before, but the way they did it tonight had an extra twist - they were arm-in-arm with each other with one leading with his left hand while the other led with his right hand. I suppose the effect for the follower was somewhat akin to dancing with someone with a very wide body. Hmm. That sounds a little gross whereas the overall effect in fact was cute rather than grotesque in my opinion. It certainly succeeded in starting a small Rueda circle. I thought someone was inspired by this to use the term Stevadam at the end of the evening (which then led to people trying to combine Cyrille and Sergio into Cyrillio).

After watching one of many dances between Ivan and Nina, I asked Ivan, "How many years have you been dancing with each other?" Ivan gave an oblique answer, "Many years."

By the way, either Agnes or Stephanie (or both maybe?) told me that I had to convince Cyrille to come to the CDC party on Sunday. Speaking of the CDC party, I failed to purchase tickets for myself and others from my workplace because somebody (let's give him/her a pseudonym - Marx) had a "gig" in London. Now I have to go through rigors of writing a personal cheque and then go on a quest to hand deliver the precious cheque to a distant fortress guarded by a fearsome maiden magician-warrior.

Factoid of the day - This was the first time I was told not to mention something that happened tonight by someone using a microphone.

The evening ended shortly after midnight with people still milling about and not in a hurry to leave (with Liam being one of the notable exception - he has work to do… then again just the fact that he showed up again would suggest that his opinion of Cambridge Salsa has changed a bit, no?).

I probably will hate the way this post is written, but I have spent too much time writing it as is. Oh well.