hey guys thread one is too long and hard to load...please post new lessons info here thanks [edit by latingal - p.s. here is a link to the old lesson thread (now closed) in case anybody would like to peruse it: http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=11991]
(After a lesson with Donald Johnson) Apparently I have a spine. And it's supposed to move. ::sighs:: I keep learning about all these body parts that aren't feet . . .
Oh just... trying to fight the ballerina in me. She insists on trying to chaine her way in and out of everything, even though the brain knows it's pivot time. *sigh*
:uplaugh: Major props for that one. I'll bet that's going to be somebody's sig quote soon! (Tried to post this to the other thread, and it disappeared): Last Tuesday was waltz (smooth) day. Worked on check and develope, using the advice that Larinda so generously provided in my thread on that. One of the problems I've been having with that is that I've been allowing my left foot to turn inwards (away from partner) when I lunge. So I really concentrated on getting that foot rotated outwards. But I over-did it and tweaked my knee a bit. It's not injured; I think I just found some muscles or tendons there that don't get used and are weak. (Odd that I've never come across that doing Latin...) But I must say, my check is much better. I'm able to get more extension, and keeping that right hip back really helps with my balance. Then, we worked on oversway (a step that I'm fully capable of making a complete mess of). Key here was: it's not done in promenade. The "stop" step must be a side step, or the follower can't stop -- d'oh! And I was lowering too much. My instructor wants me to change my ending from a rock step to a whisk. After this, we stepped back to bronze and worked on fallaway and rock. My rock hasn't been rotating too much, because I was doing it too stiff-legged, which gets your weight stuck in between feet.
Went over American waltz developes which was good since I didn't remember the lead very well from the first class on them awhile back. I think I have it now with an oversway on coming out of them now no less. Took a beginners American tango class just to see what another studio was like. The instructor was a ballerina. Man, talk about perfect... everything. Learned a new way of getting into promenade with a checkstep and learned basic tango runs. For whatever reason(s) I can't just watch a demo and do a step. I have to do it over and over and over so going back and taking review classes is a good thing...
For the last 2 day is was American Foxtrot. I wonder who said that foxtrot was easy. We been working on slowing my dancing down and taking bigger side steps and placing my head in the correct location. Boy I been felling like a really did not know how to dance Foxtrot. But the good part is that my teacher destroy everything I knew and he is putting back the proper way. So I hope at the end of this cycle it will look like foxtrot in the correct timing and DW will not feel like I am running her over. So there is hope for me at the end of the tunnel.
youtube.com/watch?v=G8_MNDNoVqg Not the most amazing technique you'll ever see, but you get the point. In ballet, you often do series of chaînés turns without coming down off pointe or demi-pointe.
After looking at the video is one of the turn my teacher wants me to learn because it helps turning so much better during Rhythm dances. I have been practicing on an off so I can look as good as lovely bride does when she is doing turns while we are dancing.
And cornutt, before you pronounce this to someone else and they give you "the look," in case you didn't look it up, it's pronounced "shuh-NAY" .. ;-)
If I have a Dollar for every time my teacher has said it I could pay for 1 competition a month for a whole year.
lesson of the month, it's time to start dancing from your heart...not your head. it's an exciting, but also baffling time....
I just wish some instructors were more precise in their use of "Three Point|Step Turn" versus Chaine... They'll say Three Step turn, but do a chaine... The instructor trying to explain regular old natural pivots in standard/smooth, as three step turns.... grrrrrr....
My sympathies. I'm in a similar boat in AT. As you said, exciting, but baffling. And hard! Can't I just go back to working technique and following?
