After deciding on Saturday that we'd compete Smooth in Tampa, worked on waltz, foxtrot, and tango in our lesson with Francesca today. Tango is good, waltz is close to good, foxtrot sucks mightily. We know foxtrot sucks, so we never dance it, so it keeps on sucking: vicious cycle. In all 3 dances we have to concentrate on staying down in our knees and pushing off the floor from the standing leg, and on making our toplines big. In a weird way it's like marching band and how you "hunker down" to take really long steps. It also makes Smooth a lot more strenuous than I ever imagined it could be, but strenuous is good. We need to work on stamina and I need to work on making my body stronger. dancer1957 is a little overweight but he's also really strong. I'm slim and trim but I couldn't eat pesto on my pasta at lunch today because I couldn't get the %$#@! jar open. Same scenario for my arms, legs, and core--building strength is bound to make me a better dancer.

I wore my new shoes and they hurt, but after another couple hours' wear I think they'll be perfect. Thank goodness for my Yoga Toes. It had been a while since I'd worn a really pointy shoe and my big toe joints were traumatized. USA Dance should organize a program for members to have bunion surgery at a discount, because I'll probably need it someday.

Going to Pauline's beginner class tonight, ostensibly to practice but really to debrief about the comp. with Pauline. I don't think dancer1957 is coming, so I will ask if I can be a man during class. Leading is very interesting.

Oh, LJ.

I can now officially claim to be a competitive ballroom dancer.

'Tis awesome.

*falls over dead*

First, I got ready for dance class a little early this evening and thus took my trash can out to the curb while wearing skin-tight jazz pants. Fast-forward 30 years and I'll be swanning around in a caftan and turban with a cigarette holder (what would I put in it? Pocky?). Then, at class, I asked Pauline if I could take my t-shirt off and dance in just my sports bra, because after 1 cha-cha I was pouring sweat. She, a 60+-year-old woman who has been known to wear a fishnet shirt over a red bra, recommended against it. Where has my sense of propriety gone?

+ Email comp. organizer for schedule
+ Email friends to harass them into attending
+ Practice at least 2x this week
+ Print out directions to venue
+ Put on self-tanning lotion daily
+ Do nails (white)
+ Clean & brush pink shoes in case new ones don't arrive
+ Wardrobe: fishnets, black halter leotard, black practice skirt
+ Makeup: foundation, concealer, blush, bronzer, black/silver eyeshadows, mascara, red lipstick, Airbrush Legs
+ Take camera and extra batteries

+ After two one-hour private lessons and a social dance this weekend, Yoga Toes feel REALLY good.

+ Dialogue while exiting today's lesson:
sauvagerie: Ugh, I have waffle butt from my fishnets!
dancer1957: But you like waffles!

+ Have registered for Dancesport Challenge, and not a moment too soon. Must still figure out wardrobe. Zoinks!

I love Reem Acra's designs (not that I can afford them), so I'm not surprised at all to find out that she is also a dancer!

Did anyone else notice that Dancing with the Stars ended just in time for So You Think You Can Dance to begin? Thanks, Universe! And on a related note, am I allowed to fly to San Francisco on June 13 to take a lesson and attend the "welcome party at Cheryl Burke's new studio?

See 5:04 and then skip ahead to 10:13.

In other news, I'm definitely getting these shoes when I find some money. I tried them on last August in Ft. Collins, CO and the saleswoman confirmed that they are a good shoe for "low volume feet." They are only about $10 more than what I've been wearing and I'm sure they will fit better. Yay! I also want a pair of silver shoes but that would just be a gratuitous vanity purchase.

This concludes tonight's episode of "Linkity."

Exhibition: done. It went extremely well. Pauline even said she was proud of us. o_O

I had exactly enough energy after my 12-hour day to get through 2 numbers, come home, put on my pajamas and eat a leftover grilled chicken salad that Miss Brown foisted on me. Internet, you heard it here first: exhaustion is actually a pretty good offset to stage fright. You're too tired to be cripplingly nervous, and the adrenaline rush you do get is just enough to keep you dancing and smiling. Good to know.

I totally get it now!

I always read your Women's Chorus day-of-show-logistics posts and think "Wow, that's a lot of planning." But tomorrow I have to go straight from a 12-hour workday to a dance performance. I get it now!

Tonight
+ Do nails
+ Get together all costume pieces:
-- black miniskirt
-- silver tank
-- fishnets
-- trunks
-- red dress
-- kimono to hide costume till it's my turn
-- shoes
+ Assemble makeup: foundation, concealer, bronzer, lipstick, eyeshadow, brushes, powder
+ Gather shower equipment: shampoo, soap, towel, razor, and flip-flops; round brush, gel, and blow-dryer

Tomorrow
+ 7:15 a.m.: Leave home with all of the above in car
+ 8 a.m.: Freshman comp. final
+ 10 a.m.-12 p.m.: Grading, lunch
+ 12 p.m.-4 p.m.: Discipline Committee hearings
+ 4 p.m.-6 p.m.: Find food. Shower, do hair, put on makeup and (possibly) costume in faculty locker room at gym
+ 6 p.m.-8 p.m.: Professional Communication final
+ 8 p.m.-10 p.m.: Dance event with exhibitions starting at 9:00, by which time my ass better be there
+ 10:30 p.m.: Arrive home and fall down dead

Last night, K-Dub, dancer1957 and I carpooled to a town about 25 minutes away where the Rotary Club was putting on its annual fundraising dance. Heavy hors d'oeuvres, cash bar, silent auction, live band, $35/ticket or $250 for a table of 8: doesn't that summary suggest at least "cocktail attire" to you? D. wore a shirt and tie; K-Dub and I sported sparkly dresses; most of the rest of the crowd looked like they'd just come off the golf course. It worked out for the best, though. Pauline had, unbeknownst to us, arranged (or decided on the spot, for all I know) to have us do some exhibition dancing during the band breaks. If I'm going to get up in front of people and represent the glorious excess that is ballroom dancing, I'd rather look, well, excessive.


From left to right, that's Mrs. K (come to think of it, I've never even seen her wear pants--always a skirt), Pauline, me, and K-Dub.

K-Dub picked out my dress; I'd never have considered that color but I got a lot of compliments on it.

BUG OUT COMPLETELY!!!

Last Friday dancer1957 and I ran into Pauline while out for a cup of coffee. She announced that our USA Dance chapter was talking about raising its profile and had, in keeping with that goal, decided to pay entry fees and travel expenses for a few dancers to go to a competition in Metropolis in "a few months." The chosen dancers are SuperJim and J.D., and dancer1957 and me. She has talked about stuff like this before, and I'd have chalked it up to a latte-fueled whim, but then our chapter president discussed it with us at the monthly social last Saturday. So it's really happening!

We'll now pause for a happy-dance. Play, or hum, the ballroom music of your choice.

Okay. Tonight at Pauline's class I got a copy of the competition announcement. The date is June 28. That's 2 months away! Holy crap! I just hope Francesca will be willing to take us on again as students. I danced with another student of hers tonight, and when I jokingly said "I bet Francesca is totally trash-talking us for dropping out of lessons," he just smiled and didn't answer. Then when I pressed him on it, he...didn't answer, some more. He's a gossipmonger, though. No doubt he was just enjoying watching me squirm.

"And since nothing appears to me to give children so much becoming confidence and behaviour, and so to raise them to the conversation of those above their age, as dancing, I think they should be taught to dance as soon as they are capable of learning it. For tho' this consist only in outward gracefulness of motion, yet, I know not how, it gives children manly thoughts and carriage, more than any thing."
--John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1692.

Got our groove on at the Cherry Blossom Ball last night. The venue was gorgeous, the food was tasty, the drinks were free, and everyone looked fabulous. K-Dub and I agreed that next year they need to do red carpet arrivals complete with paparrazi so that after the event we could all go online and play Fashion Police as after the Oscars, etc. My only beef was with the 2 bands that played. With serious dancers (I R SRS DANCR. THIS R SRS EVENT.) making up a good 1/4 of the crowd I was hoping that the organizers would have provided for a variety of ballroom music, but the first band played swing and foxtrot almost exclusively (they did manage one rumba after one of us went up and requested it) and the second band played swing and hustle almost exclusively. Still, I had a very good time. The Lieutenant and I invented a new way for ladies to gauge the fun factor of a ballroom event: how many times did you see the ceiling? (Me: 5) I also danced with someone new, "Jim Belushi," who is rather a blowhard but whose dancing ability at least matches his braggadocio. We danced a hustle that went on...and on...and on, inciting him to try progressively more complex combinations while I just prayed I wouldn't pass out. I know the basic hustle step, and hustle is a dance that responds well to the "just keep doing the basic" survival technique, but when you're being flung and twisted around the floor by a flirty character who is also a perfect stranger, panic starts to creep in. As I told K-Dub, though, I'm just competitive enough that a part of me was thinking the whole time, "Bitch, I can dance anything you throw at me." Which was...mostly true.

( Behind the cut: Picspam )

Pauline is re-starting her First Friday dances at the Sports Hall of Fame in May and is planning to include an exhibition. She wants dancer1957 and me to dance and I want to take the opportunity to do a rumba to Timbaland/One Republic's "Apologize." Will I be borrowing some steps from Helio & Julianne? Probably.

The Lieutenant (K-Dub's partner) taught a 2-hour workshop today on West Coast Swing, his specialty. 'Twas awesome, but as always we were short of men, so Pauline pressed me into learning the man's part. I couldn't have done it if we'd been working on a dance I already knew, but I have barely been exposed to WCS, so being a guy was not too difficult. One of the women I partnered said I was a better partner than the actual men she usually dances with!

After about an hour of workshopping, Pauline called for a break. When we got back to work, several of the men didn't return on time and Pauline asked about them. "They went to the restroom," someone volunteered. I added "They were too intimidated by me." And Kelly threw in, "Yes, they couldn't handle her towering masculinity." Hee.

Now back from tonight's social dance, at which I hardly danced, on accounta (1) too tired from this afternoon (despite hour-long nap: WTF?) and (2) sinus headache moving in from Lord knows where. Have taken some Sudafed and Tylenol and will now make with the sleeping.

*My towering masculinity: let me show you it?

If you are dancing with a man who is doing all the right steps but ignoring the rhythm of the music, do you try to alter your tempo/rhythm to match his? A lot of the men in my class can do the step patterns, but with no attention to rhythm or tempo--I think they get worried about remembering the steps and start to rush. In that case one is almost bound to speed up or start missing leads.

Some men would take a correction on this point graciously and with good humor; some would insist that they are doing the best they can; the most audacious would try to spin their tin-eared approach as a point of style: "That's just the way I do it."

On the up side, I discovered that it is possible to adjust to dancing with a man who is 7' tall (with my dance shoes on I am 5'11"). It's all a matter of figuring out how to follow a lead that's being communicated at a level up around your ears.

N.B.: Seven-Feet-Tall Man and Rhythmless Man are not the same guy. I'd have been doomed.

Discount Dance Supply's wish list feature includes the total cost of all the stuff on your wish list. I could have my whole list for $220.15.

Not that I have $220.15 to spare, but somehow, seeing the total there and looking at all the stuff (3 pairs of tights, 2 pairs of shoes, and some miscellaneous separates) makes me think "Oh, that's not so bad."

Must put the online shopping down and slowly...walk...away.

I took these with my digital camera so the quality is not spectacular, but you'll get the idea. They are good enough to remind me of the steps so I can practice, anyway, and I enjoyed the Pasha Ass Close-Up at the end of the samba routine.

Samba...Cha-Cha.

Pasha's Latin workshop was fantastic. I feel like I learned a lot, and I am so impressed by how genuine and enthusiastic he is. He was a better teacher than I expected. A good dancer isn't necessarily a good teacher, but he knows how to give constructive, specific criticism without letting a class get bogged down. he also has a knack for explaining the same thing in multiple ways, so if you don't understand one explanation, another one will come. He even told us when it's okay to cheat--I'd never done a "bachacata" (a samba step) before and had no chance of doing a technically correct one, but he showed us how to fake it by just stepping fast and wiggling our butts!

He divided the 2-hour session in half. We worked on cha-cha for the first hour and samba for the second hour. Thank goodness Pauline has recently started teaching us samba, or I'd have been utterly lost. For each dance, he taught us a short solo routine. As we learned the routine, he would stop and give corrections and drill us on certain elements; then we would do the full routine and get more corrections. It was such a smart approach: no one had to share partners (as always, more women were present than men) and we all had to focus on cleaning up our own dancing. He worked us really hard on pushing into the floor, engaging our muscles to make our movements more sharp and delineate changes in tempo/energy, and making crisp changes of direction. That doesn't sound like 2 hours' worth of work, but it was. I am exhausted, not just from the physical work (which was manageable, if sweaty) but from the mental work of learning the choreography and remembering the corrections and things he wanted us to emphasize.

I used my camera to take video of Pasha dancing the two routines he taught us, so I'll post links to the videos once I get them uploaded. Right now I'm just waiting for some laundry to finish so I can crash.

dancer1957, whom I've started calling "the Pied Piper," talked to Pasha about coming to the U.L. to do a workshop and he was very enthusiastic about the idea. About 1/3 of the attendees were people from our dance scene in the U.L.--I pointed out to him who we were and explained where we'd come from. We think we could collaborate with Neighboring Town's USA Dance chapter to host him for a workshop; I'm sure we could get 20+ people to come and hopefully he'd be available for private lessons on the same day. dancer1957 got his phone number (!!!!!). He's supposed to be back in Metropolis within the next couple of months and said he could possibly come to the U.L. for one day on that trip. Squee!

from a user on Dance Forums:
hypodancemania (HODM): if you do not dance more you will go nuts.
hyperdancemania (HEDM): dancing till you are nuts.
mesodancemania (MODM): lightweight - take up knitting.

And my own current condition: LHFOS, Left Hip Flexor On Strike. It's been sore all week; feels better when I stretch it but then when I get up in the morning it's stiff and sore all over again. This happens sometimes when I sit at a desk too much, especially if I sit with my legs crossed. I've been doing a lot of desk work recently and, I suspect, sleeping on that side at night as well.

At least it doesn't hurt when I dance. dancer1957 and I and two fellow dancers are going to Metropolis on Sunday for a two-hour Latin workshop with Pasha Kovalev from So You Think You Can Dance.
*poingpoingpoing*