I was straight-up spoiled this past week! I danced four nights and saw the Dancing with the Stars Live show on the fifth night. And that was after a whole day of ballroom training at the Smooth Camp last Saturday. Yes indeed, I was spoiled.
Tag: rumba
Things I Learned From Watching My Practice Videos
If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen that I posted a few videos yesterday. If not, the links are on the side bar. Go check them out! I’ll wait.
Turn Right…Recalculating…
So remember the awesome new line of communication with my body I was discovering? Well, I think there’s a short.
We worked on rhythm in today’s lesson, specifically rumba and cha cha. Teacher wanted me to focus on foot pressure and core. I did…ok.
Just Enjoy It – Two Great Lessons and a Book Launch
This past week, I had my two regular lessons, one working on rhythm and the other working on smooth. During the rhythm lesson, we danced the cha cha routine to music and I NAILED that stupid spin TWICE! Then we worked on rumba and I “upgraded” my hip movement, according to Teacher. During the smooth lesson, we revisited tango. Teacher wanted me to focus on keeping my right arm forward (I tended to let it pull back, especially when the movement required me to put my left side forward). We worked on these tiny adjustments I could make to be able to take my left side forward without affecting the right.
You know how your teacher will tell you to do something and keep telling you you’re not doing it and then all of a sudden, after making the tiniest adjustment that you may or may not be aware that you made, they exclaim “yes, that’s it!”? Usually, in that situation, I have no idea what adjustment I made. But during this week’s smooth lesson, I actually started to feel it. I consciously made a tiny correction while we were dancing and Teacher felt it and confirmed it was correct!
Sounds like an awesome week, right? Well, it was!
So what’s the catch? There must be something, it can’t all be good.
“Now You’re Dancing!”
I didn’t expect to do another post so soon, but I had to share! Right after publishing the last post, I went to the studio for a dance lesson. What better way to end the day? My last lesson left me frustrated and then I had several extremely stressful and/or depressing days, so I was ready for an upswing.
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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.
Almost Musical
Yesterday’s lesson focused just on rhythm. Teacher wanted to finish going over the choreography for the rumba and cha cha routines and introduce the east coast swing. We didn’t end up getting to the swing, but we rarely get to the last things on Teacher’s list so no matter. Next time!
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The Art of Patience and Skipping Ahead
I’ve Got Rhythm
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before: along with lessons with Teacher, I also take private lessons once a week with Teacher’s friend in exchange for working at a bunch of social dances he ran last year. He is all about social ballroom dancing, so we work on American rhythm dances like rumba, cha cha and east coast swing, plus salsa, samba and occasionally bolero, all with that social focus. There are no specific routines or discussion of technique, it’s all about following and musicality.
Quite different from my lessons with Teacher.
The Girl with the Tree Tattoo 