Catching Up

Whoops, I'm falling behind in writing up what's been going on. I've missed writing up the last two lessons. Both times I had to jump into something right after, so I couldn't do it then, and in the following days, general busyness has kept me from taking the time (yeah, yeah...excuses, excuses...).

Last Monday was great, but the one before was another of those frustrating nights, where nothing seemed to come together and the legs just didn't want to move. I felt somewhat stiff that night, and couldn't get the looseness and relaxed-ness to move decently. Plus I had a heck of a time wrapping my head around some of the moves.

We do a couple of things that move us backward, pull-backs and another one that I forget the name of, or maybe it doesn't have a name. I find them really hard to get moving, so I'm moving about quarter speed, while everyone else is breezing by. Both generate three sounds per, but one is a brush-step-heel on one foot, then alternates. The other starts with a step, then brush-tap-heel, creating a BUM budda-BUM budda-BUM budda-BUM sound. Well, OK, I'm not at all sure about either one. I think I'm remembering the budda-BUM one, but the other one I might be totally out to lunch on.

Coolest of the cool: we have all of the Honi Coles Stroll now. Tanis has been drilling us on the last bit, and I have that down, though not fast enough to do it smoothly at speed. The first part is a hoot, too, cuz it starts out really easy, but adds little variations to things until it's actually a rather complex sound. But there's the part in the middle, and we just got all of that last lesson. I can't be sure I remember all of it, and I know I have trouble with some transitions. And because of the transitions, I keep feeling like I'm missing something in there.

The Astaire bit is still totally stymying me. We have most of it, but I just can't get the feet to go fast enough to make any kind of coherent sound. The way it goes is a quick bit of dance, with a pause, same as the piano in the music (which is C-Jam Bluest), so there's this flurry of movement, then we hold position. It almost seems like I'm the only one struggling to stay upright, my balance is so bad. I can still pull off the spinning cramp roll, but I get a couple of extra sounds when I have to take a couple of steps (clomp, clomp...) to keep from falling over.

We do some body rhythm stuff, too, where we break up into three or four smaller groups, and use our own creativity to dream up a sequence of sounds that everyone else has to repeat. And we don't just use our feet; we can clap hands or slap bellies or whatever.

Speaking of which, Tanis has us doing a travelling step which has us doing a chugg on the supporting foot, then a step with the other foot, then slapping ourselves in the chest a couple of times - chugg-step-slap-slap, chugg-step-slap-slap - and then doing a step-clap-step-clap-step-clap-clap, step-clap-step-clap-step-pause-pause (the pauses being soundless). It's kinda like the patting-the-head-rubbing-the-belly thing, and takes at least as much coordination.

And the pass cramp rolls are driving me crazy! Terrifically frustrating, because of the reversing of the heel drops, and that extra brush to start. There's one sequence where we shuffle, cramp roll, shuffle, cramp roll, cramp roll, pass cramp roll. That's three cramp rolls straight - left toe, right toe, left heel, right heel (l-r-l-r). Then you suddenly throw in the pass cramp roll - left toe, right toe, right heel, left heel (l-r-r-l). Through all this you're moving to the left, with the first three cramp rolls leaving you with your weight on the right foot, so you can start again on the left. The pass cramp roll ends with your weight on the left foot, so you can start with the right foot, and move back towards where you started from.

Yesh, that's a long paragraph just to explain something that's actually pretty simple (and really hard to cleanly - well, for me, anyway)

Balance is a real challenge for me. I find the stuff where I have to keep the weight on one foot for some time has me waving my arms trying to keep my balance. I'm not sure what is missing that would allow me to stay put. Legs should be fine I would think, with all the running. Maybe I should be on the balance board a little more.

Anyway, for all the frustraion, it's still a lot of fun. We just got the forms for early registration for the next session, and I'm weighing that against some other things I want to do. I'll need to see how the scheduling works out next year, before I commit. I really do want to continue, so we'll see.

Late Write-up

It's been such a busy few days, but now I finally have time to sit down and write up the last lesson. Of course, it's been long enough that I've forgotten some things. (Most things?)

What I do remember is the sense of frustration. This time around is being difficult. Tanis is throwing a lot at us, and while some of us are up to it, some of us are getting lost. I find that some of the steps, while certainly not difficult, they go by so fast that I don't have time to figure out what is happening. Actually, the steps are nothing new, and I know how to do them. But I don't have the looseness and the facility to do them quickly yet, nor do I seem to have the ability to hold the sequence in memory long enough to get through it.

Anyway, there is the ending of the Honi Coles Stroll, that I think I have down more or less, but trying to get my legs and feet to just do it, and not think about it, is a challenge. I find I miss something, and then I'm either playing catch-up or waiting for a spot to jump back into it.

But I can still pull off the spinning cramp roll move. That's cool! Cramp rolls are one of those things that's easy to get, but hard to do right. Throwing the spin in seems to even out the heel drops, and it actually sounds pretty even.

One move that's totally new the last couple of weeks, is what I think is called the pass cramp roll, which allows the weight shift so you can switch feet to reverse another move - a sort of transition move.

A cramp roll is a quick toe-toe-heel-heel, left-right-left-right (or right-left-right-left) move, it's done really fast and sounds neat when done right, but to me it always looks awkward, even by the pros. Maybe that's why it's called a cramp roll, as it cramps four sounds into a single beat. With the pass cramp roll, the sequence of heel drops is reversed so the weight can shift. On top of that the first toe step is preceded by a brush.

Much of what trips me up, I think, is the reversal of sequences that can precede or follow a weight shift. Things like the left-right-left-right that suddenly goes left-right-right-left, to turn things around.

The Stroll is done to Take the A-Train, and I think we use the original Duke Ellington recording. Then there's the Astaire dance, and I think Tanis may have adapted it from one of his performances in the movie Shall We Dance, or she may have just borrowed some of the moves and put them together in her own creation. I think the music we're using is the C-Jam Blues (another Ellington hit), which opens with few short burst of piano. It's the piano burst that we dance to; the rests between bursts are rest for us. And again, it comes so fast, that I end up mostly kind of shuffling and hoping my feet sort of end up the same as everyone elses.

I'm certain I could master it all with practice, but there's the rub. Time to practice, and place, are hard to find sometimes. (Sometimes it's just an energy deficit)

For now, I'll keep plugging away, and keep faith that I'll eventually master this stuff. At the moment I plan on repeating Tap 1 when it comes around again next year. Repetition is the key. And I'll hold on to the fact that for all the frustration of it, it's still a heck of a lot of fun, and a great way to meet new people.