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.
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.
posted by Kelly at
12:48 PM
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