Season end

Dave, our program director at the Y, has announced that our class will suspend till next November. I didn’t get the announcement till Tuesday, too late to mention it Monday evening.

So I’ll be there to direct traffic Monday, the day after Easter.
Check here for news on where I’ll be dancing this summer: I’ve got prospects cooking to commence something public in May.

2012 update
Dave never answered my emails, never returned my calls, I taught no classes this season.

Check with Duffers: Maureen and her lessons continued popular but switched times, Monday to Wed and back again. Get current info there.

Meeting Room

We started in the Blue Room, as the flyer advertised, great big wall mirror, too soft a gymnasts carpet for dancing; but we were promised the Meeting Room: in the first building, right ahead through the entrance doors, almost the same size, a pretty good wall mirror: but far and away the best floor if you have the right dance shoes.

People are going back north already, but we had a marvelous time, squeezing several new dances into the hour. We loved the Tulsa Shuffle so much that we did it several times, loving each time the more

Dancing Around

I heard recently that Maureen was dancing Monday evenings at Duffers, N of Sun & Lakes, S of the Community College. Duffers had a half-page color ad in the paper. Line dance teacher Ron showed it to me. The paper said March. Then I heard that Maureen was extended through April.

So, after my own Monday class I headed to Duffers: and I’m glad I did: she had a neat group going. And I learned that Maureen has choreographed some of her own charts. Very nice.

I can’t say how long Maureen has been teaching around Highlands Co. I’m a new comer, to line dancing, if not to Highlands Co. But I see that she’s an institution: she had a solid group around her as a foundation for her public offering.

I took a couple of Maureen’s lessons a couple of years ago: just when Dee Dee stopped teaching at Francis 2, and Maureen started. So I met a couple of her “students” then. (Damned if they weren’t my own students from HSC!) Well, a couple of those were there Monday; but for the most part I didn’t recognize anyone: except Maureen. So: she had several years’ collection of dancers, well trained by her. Or, they were good dancers who picked it up right away: whether or not they knew her.

Then again, my own group, at the Y, is coming on just splendidly.

Tonight I dance with Joyce’s group in Lake Placid: as, alas, the season winds down.
Joyce will head N May sometime; Maureen has been extended at Duffers! Indefinitely, I guess.

It’s droll: it’s a couple of months since I told Jan I was thinking of offering line dancing through a bar and restaurant as well as at the Y. I began a dialogue with Nick at the Bella Vista, just S of Duffers. Began a dialogue with another bar, way S, but still Sebring, a few weeks ago (in fact, I’ve got an appointment there tonight!) And suddenly, there’s Maureen, going full tilt.

So: my conversation is on hold at Bella Vista: too close to Maureen’s gig. But I think it will be dandy if I can offer something comparable in mid-Highlands: south Sebring. By October. or sooner. (Tonight I’ll see how the management responds to my showing them Duffer’s promotion of Maureen’s teaching.)

What I want to see is different area dancers mixing occasionally. I never see Lake Placid people dancing in Sebring, I see dancers in Avon Park I don’t know from Lake Placid.

In college I hung around the Village: and Harlem. Never saw either people crossing boundaries.

Update: Last evening I had that meeting with the manager of a bar restaurant with a good size dance floor and live music a few evenings a week. He expressed continuing interest in my suggestions, and wants to meet again toward the end of April.

That’s promising, but not definite: certainly not binding on me. I’ll do what I think is best for line dancing around Highlands Co, not what’s best for a particular restaurant I own no part of.

Walls

There’s a tradition around line dancing that indicates the number of “walls”: four walls. Well, we dance in a line, like the Rockettes. At some point in a basic group of measures, say 16, or 32, we turn the line. Everyone starts facing say “north”; then everyone turns say “west.” I indicate such as a CCW movement: counter-clockwise, as the Key divulges.

(Never mind where north “really” is (where will north be when we’re outside this solar system?) Think of it as bridge talk: four positions around a table. Here we are in a room, a hall, and presume four walls. “Call” one of them north, use a compass, or ignore the outside world.)

The Electric Slide proceeds facing one wall, say “north,” for 16 counts, then it uses an “extra” two counts to turn to a new wall: N for 16, CCW on 17, 18, and commence the new 16 facing W. And so the dance proceeds: a two count turn to a new wall, CCW, after every 16 counts (or four measures): four measures, half a measure; four measures, half a measure: CCW through all four walls: north, west, then south …

But it isn’t always so simple. Alley Cat faces one wall (“north”), but slides dramatically east, then turns and slides back west.

The Boot Scootin Boogie faces a wall, then pivots 180o. Meantime, it moves on diagonals.

The Special K Cha Cha moves east and west, then pivots north and south. In the middle it briefly faces west, then east. But it’s not 4 walls in the simple straightforward way the ‘Slide is. Amos Moses changes wall, first CCW, then 180 degrees CW in one measure!

We can generalize but the generalizations will be shaggy.

Style

Styling Our Dance Steps

A group may do the same box step, the same grapevine: but Fred Astaire, or Gene Kelly, Michael Jackson, or Rudoph Nureyev’s execution of the “same” step will be unique, unmistakable.

Learn the step, then, as you become comfortable with it, style it: style the hell out of it! But not to the point of forgetting safety. Pete Rieser of the Brooklyn Dodgers had a style, as he caught the fly, crashing into the wall; Willie Mays caught the fly, and survived it.

I have style, distinctive, unique, I can’t help it. But I try to teach the steps in plain vanilla. Some people spin a grapevine. Go ahead and spin yours. But I won’t spin mine, I don’t even want to know how, not when I’m leading a group: especially not when the group has invited seniors, non-athletes, people trying to get active, to trim down.

Some moves have a minimum of athleticism required, the 180 on count 20 of the Boot Scootin’ Boogie, for example, or the final eight count weave of the Tulsa Shuffle. Try it, master it, style it, but make an effort to come out of it still able to walk.

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Variations: Any individual line dancer can add fancy step variations, but in a class, don’t confuse novices practicing the bare bones pattern. For example, many dancers spin while doing grapevines: during the Electric Slide, for example. (I don’t. I style my moves, but don’t want to appear to be prescribing frills: especially not among seniors.)

Shoes

pk at the Y: Comments, Caveats
Safety, Comfort:

Shoes:
Shoes: You want dancing shoes for most dance surfaces. Leather is good, you want the soles to slide a bit but not be too slippery. Same with the floor: a little waxed, not too waxed. Dance shoes can be ordered on line.

Remember our first meeting in the Blue Room? We found that it was better to dance in stocking feet than in athletic shoes on that plush acrobats’ carpet.

Be careful before you try bare feet on anything, but it’s your decision.

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Boots!

Joyce Covington leads her line dances in Lake Placid wearing boots. She emphasizes the country in line dancing, the cowboy. Cute as the dickens. Look at these folk, the men too are wearing boots!

The question is: how well do they fit? Are the soles right for the floor surface? Do they help or hinder support?

Safety First

Line dancing is wonderful, isn’t it? Good fun, great exercise (great aerobically) … you meet people …

You meet people who tend to be healthier than average, while you’re getting yourself healthier (and likely better looking!) than maybe you were last month, last year.

Sometimes we look great, as individuals. It’s really wonderful when the whole group looks great: when we each look good, and when the group is dancing well, together. Wonderful.

But: face it: there are line dancing accidents: stresses, injuries.
Well, there are stresses and injuries in any sport. There are injuries in any audience. The wheel chairs at the ball park aren’t for the players!

I’ve uttered dozens of safety tips, since day one, minute one. Now I’ll begin to gather them here, repeat them, clarify them, add to them, merge them … try to edit a logic out of them: so we have here a line dancing encyclopedia of safety: and fun.

Some of the comments already up are safety related, ditto some coming.

Be comfortable. Dress sensibly. Have a thought for shoes. (qv)

Learn the dance, do the dance, but also: take it easy. Watch out for those 180o turns! Watch out for the 360′s coming up! for the CW followed by CCW …

Like any athlete, practice balancing on the balls of your feet!

Train for flexibility as well as strength!

Be realistic: if the average age in your group seems to be ten years younger than your age, watch out. Know when to take a breather, know when to blur a hard part and rejoin the line at the next measure.

Don’t wait for me to tell you what to do.

Comfort: think comfort. If it hurts, it may not be good for you.
Also think: no pain, no gain.
But not past fifty!

Floor surface:
Ain’t it great now dancing in the Meeting Room, on a smooth linoleum floor? after the thick gymnast carpet of the Blue Room? great carpet for gymnasts, but not so great for dancers.

Ain’t it great now dancing dances for the N^th time? The better we know the steps, the better we’ll look, better we’ll feel, and the more fun we’ll have!