Ballroom Dancesport A Combined: Week 2

July 9, 2008

Rumba

2,3,4 from open hold into closed hold with left foot slightly to forward left on 4 turning body slightly clockwise
6,7,8 (I think the count might have been referred to still as 2,3,4) hook step on 6 – is this called back spot turn elsewhere?
1,2,3,4 lead follower to turn full clockwise (I think it’s a swivel turn for follower) on 1 [I wonder if the turn needs to start on 8 and finish on 1 – perhaps not considering Rumba is quite slow so there’s enough time for recovery], then lead follower to walk around the leader clockwise with the circle completed in 2 bars
6,7,8 complete the follower to walk around and get into closed hold
2,3,4 right into cuddle – for follower it’s a Cuban back-to-back like footwork but the leader is going side-to-side (here follower is doing R-L-R rock back while leader is stepping to L on 2, in place 3, close together on 4) – mostly R in closed hold to lead with free L with initial signal
6,7,8 another cuddle to the other side (using L arm closed hold)
2,3,4 cuddle to the first side same way
5,6,7,8 this bit and afterwards gets a little odd as the footwork timing gets changed around – lead follower to turn counterclockwise into wrap on 1, then it is to L side walking backwards R-L-R ending in New Yorker like position on count 2 but here on count 8/4 and with weight on R foot rather than L
2,3,4 in place L-R-L
5,6,7,8 R forward toe no weight transfer (I found this quite difficult) on 5/1 or slightly before then back turning half counterclockwise (clockwise for follower) on 6 then complete the turn on 7,8 back into open (or was it closed?) hold

The level of detail Bruce gave was quite tremendous; I was really impressed. In any case, I felt quite comfortable with Rumba (quite possibly because I was overestimating myself although I felt quite at ease throughout aside from the weight transfer issue on the last toe while still thinking I was learning a great deal). The downfall was that I felt much less in control with Waltz by comparison.

Waltz

I don’t think there were any new moves here. However, I struggled with it a great deal. There was the issue of contra movement. I’m not sure but for leaders (or at least to my thinking right now) contra movement may be considered a logical body positioning to help with the lead. Some of the terminologies like “impetus turn” and “weave” confused me a bit as well because I couldn’t remember exactly what they were. I’ve seen the moves before and I believe I’ve heard the terms before as well. Probably more than anything else the thought that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do made me uncertain about what I was supposed to do.

Impetus turn – starts with L back, turn on R and into promenade position with L forw

Weave – starts from promenade position and gets back into closed position

A different useful nugget I picked was a statement about what happens after getting into promenade position. Three main (pretty much only?) options are weave (see above), chassis (which by the way can be continued indefinitely), and wing (I’m not sure if I have seen this move before – I wanted to ask for a brief demonstration but opted to wait for another opportunity).

I suspect my Waltz form is not up to competition standards – not that I’m interested in competitions. I suppose it may merely be that I am finding some interpretation of competition pose a bit too stiff or at least a little awkward to me. In general I suspect I’m making learning Ballroom dance a bigger challenge by not doing any Ballroom dancing outside these classes. Also whatever faults I might find about other students, I think they still seem much better overall compared to most Salsa class or other Ballroom classes I have attended to date – or at least seemingly more serious about getting things right. The number of leaders are quite a bit smaller, and I am not sure if I could trust myself to be considered to be any better than half of them (in fact I wouldn’t mind if someone gave me an assessment that I’m one of the worst ones right now). Perhaps the scariest thing is that we haven’t gotten to my worst dances – Quickstep and Jive.

Like last week I saw a face from Salsa – Hayden this time in a class before mine. It would appear that Hayden has considerably more Ballroom experience than me.

In case anyone missed it, I want to say that I am really impressed with Bruce’s teaching skills. I thought the other CDC Ballroom teachers were all pretty good, but this guy is at another level. I was expecting these Dancesport classes to have more emphasis on window dressings (or how to look formal and stuffy and all that) based upon what I have seen from Cuppers years ago, but instead I was given to hear about quite a good deal on lead-follow technique and other more substantive issues. Perhaps this is Ballroom done well (as opposed to some not-so-good stories I’ve heard elsewhere).