Several different ideas are wanting attention right now and I couldn’t decide which to focus on, so this post will likely wander down multiple paths. Ready to go?
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Category: The Student Perspective
The Salsa Club
My friend and I went to a bar/restaurant last night that has salsa and bachata dancing several nights a week. It had been about six months since the last time I went salsa dancing and boy, did I feel it! After one guy kept me on the dance floor for two songs in a row, I sat down and was ready to go to sleep about two minutes later. Granted, the songs were four or five minutes long! But still, I felt a little pathetic.
Dancing with a Headache
I’m one of those lucky people who gets frequent headaches. All sorts too! Tension headaches, caffeine headaches, not-enough-sleep headaches, weather headaches, and even those extra special migraines. Thankfully, I don’t think they are considered “chronic” as in 15+ days per month, but they show up often enough that I buy my Excedrin at Costco (one of those bulk warehouse places for those unfamiliar).
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Do or do not, there is no try. Or is there?
Happy Saturday everyone! If you recall, during my dance lesson on Wednesday, I was super self-critical. I couldn’t do anything right, and every compliment Teacher gave me was drowned out by the negative noise in my head. After reflecting on the lesson, I realized I was letting my demons get the best of me again and resolved to go into Friday’s lesson with a different attitude. So I made some commitments to myself.
Commitments for My Next Lesson
As usual, I did a lot of reflecting on the drive home from my lesson today. We did more rumba and cha cha. I’m finally getting a hang of the routines, but I still feel like all of my technique goes out the window when I try to dance them to music. Looking back on it a couple hours later, I guess I actually did pretty well. Teacher asked me to try a few things to work on my technique and I did them successfully (after a few tries). But it was one of those lessons where every little mistake outweighed every large success.
Real Dancers Can Do Splits
I’ve been itching for a new blog post topic, but my dancing has been limited lately. It’s hard to write about dancing when you’re not doing much of it! For awhile, I was dancing four days a week between private lessons with Teacher and Teacher’s friend and Teacher’s group class. So spoiled! But right now it’s just my private lessons twice a week with Teacher. Rhythm is progressing painfully slowly (at least to me), but there are “clicks” here and there. Teacher even did a little celebratory jig over my rumba during our last lesson. And we finally went through the swing routine. Only two dances to go!
This post was inspired by something other than my reduced dancing schedule though. I saw this article on Facebook about ballroom not being thought of as an expressive dance and it reminded me of something that occasionally bugs me, like a little burr in the back of my brain.
Why DWTS Makes Me Cry
The final for Dancing with the Stars is today! Has anyone else been watching? I’ve been routing for Nyle DiMarco, the last winner of America’s Next Top Model who happens to be deaf. He seems fearless in his pursuits, and it’s so inspiring. Every time I watch him just go for it, I always think “what the hell is my problem? I need to stop being so scared!”
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Mental Smackdown – Feeling Adrift
It’s been awhile since I’ve let my demons control the content! I have some fun news to share from this past weekend, but first I’m giving my demons a turn at the keyboard. Sometimes I feel better when I just let them run amuck. (Amuck, amuck, amuck!) Tired demons are happy demons, just like puppies.
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“It’s Just an Old Ballroom Injury”
Happy Saturday everyone! Did you all have a good week? Mine was rough, but I ended it with dancing, so it’s ok. I worked at a monthly social dance held by the local USA Dance chapter Friday night. I met one of the officers at a different social dance last year, which I was also working at, and he asked if I’d be interested in volunteering at his parties. I don’t do a lot, basically just help set up a few decorations at the beginning, audit the group class, and then hang out until the end to help clean up. Of course, I also dance.
Remembering Bronze
During lunch yesterday, I was going through videos and pictures stored on my phone, deleting stuff I didn’t want or need to free up space. I came across a video of Teacher and me dancing a round of bronze smooth, and I realized that it was recorded just a couple weeks before we were supposed to leave for the United States Dance Championships, a.k.a. Nationals. A couple weeks before Teacher broke his wrist.
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The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 