Back to dance school

So, last night was the second week of my Great Return To Dancing, which I had largely stopped doing when my health went to hell and the stress of neurology testing was driving me insane. It went a lot better than last week's dance lesson, I think the main reason is that my nerves weren't massively frayed from worry about how far I'd fallen behind my classmates.

Indeed, one of the nice things about my current situation is that I can claim some 'sticking with it' points. There were twelve people in my Bronze Street Latin class four months ago - Bronze Bar class last night had four people in it. With medal assessments at the end of the month, it's time for people to work out what medals to attempt. I got all of the dances for bronze bar latin right last night, but my street latin is not so good. However, I can now do a basic Argentine Tango, and got praised by the woman I was dancing in for making it enjoyable.

There's one instructor who prides himself on a 'drill sargeant' style, and while it was mildly amusing for him to tell me and my partner "If I see heels from either of you again, I'll cut your legs off," it was distracting, and I didn't know what I'd done wrong. After he'd criticised my technique (I think I didn't land my foot properly) during a dance where I was still trying to work out where to put my feet, let alone get the positioning right, I told him that I could only learn one thing at a time, and that he needed to ease off a bit. It worked, and he started leaving me alone when I was clearly aware of my mistakes, and only telling me one thing at a time to improve. Yay!

I found out that the 'heels' comment had to do with a particular landing of a foot in the middle of a rather complicated eight-step sequence, it's kinda nice to be expected to get that kind of thing right. The instructors continue to be mystified by the lack of movement in my hips when I get the leg movements right as much as I do. I know what's going on - it's all due to rather complicated tension patterns in my abdomen that deserve an entry to themselves. Hell, Giles Marin wrote an entire book on muscle tension patterns in the abdomen.

I'm also starting to really get some satisfaction out of playing the male role in a dance couple. The woman's job is to be flashy and impressive, while the guy's job is to lead her in a way that makes her look good. This means that the guy has to have solid timing, apply the right amount of strength to power spins or fast turning moves, catch the woman if she comes out of a spin awkwardly, and maintain an awareness of where other couples are on the floor to prevent collisions. Essentially, the woman's responsibilities are flexibility, speed and glamour, while the man is responsible for timing, strength and tactics.

A definite highlight was dancing with one of the instructors during the social dancing session, and after confirming that I was dancing the official routine correctly I started throwing changes in, calling moves out of sequence, or bronze-level moves that had been dropped from the bronze bar routine. She followed, and we looked good doing it. That was another highlight - bringing my dancing up to a level where people watch with a 'hey cool' kind of expression.

I danced much harder over the three and a half hours than I had intended to and could barely walk afterwards. Today I've been massively hung over, and have needed to drink a lot of water to bring my headache under control. But it was a very good night. And now, off to meet the dragons of Melbourne (plus one) for dinner. Life is good.