Lesson 5 - After a Break

It's been two weeks since the last lesson, as there was no class last week due to the public school's spring break.

I thought I would have forgotten everything after two weeks, but it was surprisingly handy in my memory. I think I remembered everything, actually. It's just that the feet and the brain remember it a little differently. Getting them coordinated has been a challenge.

We did some different things for warm up that were kind of fun. Usually, we spread out and go through several different moves that really work the legs, especially the ankles, and we did do those today. But then Tanis (our instructor) had us doing some travelling, different kinds of strutting, heel-toe or toe-heel and variations. That was kind of cool, cuz I managed to get them down pretty quick.

We did a lot of the sideways shuffly moving. First with rotating both toes to the side, then both heels, over and over. Then reversing directions. Then we did the alternating one, where you start pidgeon toed, and move one toe and the other heel, then the other toe and the first heel. If I can get it started, and then stop thinking about what I'm doing, I can go pretty smoothly. As soon as I try to figure out what my feet are doing, they get tangled up. It's really annoying that both my kids can do this so easily.

Then we did the vines thing, with two of us doing the criss-cross and the other two in the back of the room doing half-vines and a circular walk. (There were only four of us in class today) Then we trade places, and do it again. I still got hung up at the end in switching from the half-vines to this other move that's a really quick cross-over and heel click. It's hard because with the vines you cross your legs behind, but with the last bit, you cross in front, and transition from one move to the other is really fast.

We got the last move of the Shim-Sham-Shimmy, with the shuffle ball change. I almost actually did this, but it still mostly eludes me. I really like whole thing. It feels like a complete dance routine, and even has a kicky finish. But then, Tanis got us to combine it with the vines exercise, so it became a full three minute choreographed routine. Very cool!

After that, we split into teams, and Tanis played a piece, while we had to figure out our own moves to it. Totally intimidating, except that once we started, it came to us quite easily. Our team came up with a rhythm that we tapped out, then we did the sideways shuffly thing (must learn some terminology), and then we discovered that the rhythm we came up with fit quite naturally into the half-vine. I found rather amazing that we could do something like that with just a couple of basic moves.

To finish, we worked on the Stevie Wonder tune, and added a few more things to it. Lots of shuffle-ball-change, and a cool couple of stomps to finish. Tanis showed us really quick in the last couple of minutes more of the moves that we'll learn, and there is that damn sideways shuffly thing. Very challenging.

They've posted the spring and summer schedules, and I have until the end of the month to get the early bird pricing for the spring schedule. I plan to repeat intro tap, and see if I can get some mastery over some of this stuff. Depending on how that goes, I may take Tap 1 in the fall. But for sure, I'm having way too much fun to quit.