Well, despite the best efforts of London Transport, I made it to Tufnell Park only five minutes late and had changed my shoes in time to join the tail end of the warm up.
The class is described as "basics" rather than beginners as intermediate dancers are encouraged to attend - and there is an intermediate class following straight on, although I'm not sure if anyone is attending at the moment. However, the material is suitable for beginners: I found it very challenging, but not to the extent where I had to sit and go "wibble". There were only 11 people and Hamza, the fabulous teacher, made the numbers of men and women exactly even
His passion for the dance is evident (isn't that just a *gorgeous* quote on my expanded signature? - and I don't mean the forward, back, side bit either).
To start with, we spent some time walking round the room - ball of foot in full contact with the floor at all times and the variation of the "heel flick" (not quite sure what it's called, but apparently people who have played soccer have a distinct advantage).
After that, there was some practice on pivot turns - both directions, *both* feet (turning clockwise with the weight on your left foot whilst keeping both feet on the floor
).
After that, we made a square of four talc spots on the floor and practised grapevine step - forward on the left, pivot a/c, side, pivot a/c, back, side... breaking it down to forward/side and back/side as well as practising the whole thing with and without a partner. I think I got the hang of it in the end... although practising on Platform 9A while waiting for my train home got me some funny looks. Maybe it was eating chips at the same time? Anyway, the talc got everywhere of course, which was fun when it came to later in the lesson - still haven't beat ZW's slide record but gimme a couple of weeks
The really interesting bit for me was watching the obviously more experienced woman, who had a lovely neat sharp recognisable square of talc where her "spots" had spread as she slid her feet around. I wish I'd taken a photo of the results of my sliding around as I'd probably make a fortune selling it as modern art - or for use as an ink blot equivalent in personality tests.
After enough of that to make my left inner thigh muscles start complaining, we practised the grapevine in lines a few times, then partnered up and practised it with our partners. It was very very difficult doing grapevine steps when the guys weren't - Hamza had them concentrate on their leading first and is a big fan of following the chest (and the leader watching the follower's shoulders). My main fault was failing to pivot sufficiently on the back step
Unfortunately, no practica along the same lines as Lynn's class - but we did have a couple of tracks at the end to walk around to and Hamza encouraged us to go to a practica. I think I'll wait until I can actually do the grapevine in my sleep, not just hear it (as I suspect I will in my dreams tonight).
I'm in lurve...
- wonder if there's a class somewhere on Thursday?
It's going to be quite some time before the merest hint of a possibility of there being any potential for me to be "... fluid, like water, like the wind". But I'll stick with it.
Whew, that's a mammoth post even by my standards - I'm off to re-read all the others now with fresh eyes and hopefully a miniscule understanding to help me
. Just remains to say thanks for encouragement from so many people
