Do not break out into Rebecca Black. She's ruined this day of the week for all of us.
Balboa Bash started on Friday and for me it really started on Thursday when Peter Flahiff (beautiful soul; everyone I know on the scene that I am close with is a beautiful soul and that makes me have so much faith in humanity) joined our Lindy Team, The Gangbusters, for our practice. We worked on connection and sort of the light lead/follow thing and I have to say I haven't felt that light in a while. Usually I feel like I'm pretty quick to react but lately I've been feeling a bit tense in my movement and so remembering to just calm down really made my movement a lot easier.
Back to Friday, seriously don't sing it it's worse than saying "I lost the game", I woke up preparing not to go to class. I was feeling quite ill, I was tired, I just...nope, wasn't going. Then I remembered I had a private lesson with Peter and I should probably pay him (yeah, that'd be nice). Thus, reluctantly, I rose from slumber and went to drama (voice) class. I skipped history. Upon arriving back at home I was going to take a nap, I made double chocolate cookies instead.
The lesson begins. I did a half lindy half bal session so I got a bit of work in all my dancing which was awesome.
I need to keep my momentum going to create the stretch in all my movements (or compression or weight sharing or stuff that makes sense to me and not to my readers cause lets be honest...this part won't). I learned a grapevine trick to cover more ground when I need to. We played with my swivels. One thing no one seems to consider is the kind of swivels that suit your body type. We have settled on a very tight behind side front movement on the 7 and 8 and then two very hip twisty tight swivels on the 1, 2. Perfection. I'm going to have to work on my hip twisty movements. We also added some neat hip swivels to sugar pushes. Tap with right foot on 3 step with that foot on 4 and then do the same tight behind side front footwork for 5 and 6 and then those back pocket swivels for 7 and 8. There are some foot work things there to mess with in order to put it on a loop but that's the basic movement.
The position for connection has been described to me like this: you want to pretend your about to sit on a chair and lean your rib cage against a wall. This is, of course, not the only way, but the connection did feel very light and allowed me to understand what my lead wanted me to do. We covered a little foot flick on the basic uphold. On 2 you sort of slide your left foot forward while picking up your right, do the same on 4, tap 5 with the right, step with the right, hold left, step left. Back to the basics.
I have nothing in particular to say other than how awesome it was. Gotta say though, streamers and balloons were kind of difficult. Otherwise good. Regretting wearing heels to it.
