Cue the fat lady

Today was the last of our community education dance classes. It went fairly well, but I could tell the instructor was mega-frustrated. We started with about 8 couples and one loner in the class. There was a two week break in the middle of the class schedule (Thanksgiving and all) and the week before that break we were down to about 5 couples and the loner who came on and off (but she was mostly off even when she was on). After the break only one other couple and Roland and I showed up. This was pretty sweet because we got a lot of personal attention and learned some pretty cool moves. And that loner I mentioned is the most uncoordinated stiff non-dance type person ever, so her being absent was like a breath of fresh air. She is a nightmare to watch and I suppose dance with (one fella mentioned that she has a death grip while dancing). Anyway it was quite nice to be with just that one other couple. They are pretty serious (in a fun way) about it, they even went to the practice the instructor holds at his normal place of business, and bought dance shoes. All this means that we were able to learn quite a bit.

This week: badness. The seriously fun couple showed up - cool; another couple who hadn't been there in ages showed up (not particularly quick either) - not cool; and lone terrible lady showed up - major bummer. The poor instructor was trying to teach all the hard stuff we learned last week to these people while keeping funly serious couple and us going, and it wasn't going very well. I'm not sure other people noticed but I thought he was getting pretty fed up, and I totally understand. He finally sort of gave up on the loner lady, but still ended up spending a LOT of time with her - poor guy. I still had a really good time in the class though. I don't know what it is about ballroom dancing, but I love it.

I've also decided that Roland was the second best guy to dance with in the class. The first would be the instructor (duh), but I'm pretty sure he could have made most people look good (just not loner lady, that would take a serious miracle on par with ongoing world peace). Also he is shorter than Roland and even in heels I'm a lot shorter than he is. This makes it difficult to 'lock elbows' with him for the Tango. The sunly ferious couple guy has a good frame (sorry Roland you have a tendency to droop just a tad when you are concentrating) and is not too tall, but he sort of bounces with each beat. Waltz and Tango are part of the *ahem* smooth ballroom dances, leave the bouncing for the club It's very distracting and hard to dance with. Plus he isn't nearly as good at the actual steps and the whole leading thing as Roland is. Roland pays a lot of attention to where the lady is and what he needs to do to make the dance work (yay Roland). The haven't-been-there-in-forever couple guy is mostly just lost. He doesn't really know the steps so that's hard to dance with and then he's pretty limp and sweaty. Mostly just yukkie. I felt like I was leading him most of the time. He also refuses to close with you, now due to the sweatiness that's a good thing, but to be actually dancing it is a really bad thing. The feriously sun couple guy was decent about holding you close and firmly enough to actually dance but still not a good as Roland.

I wonder if the instructor teaches a foxtrot or some other dance class in January. I know he teaches a salsa class, so maybe. I'm sure classes don't start until the mid to end of January so I guess I will have to wait for the brochure to come out.

Grind

We went to dance class again on Saturday morning. It was a little difficult since we had skipped two weeks in there but it was pretty cool in that we learned some more stuff that made it feel like we were actually dancing. We spent most of time on the tango, learning at sort of turn swivel thing. Then spent a little time on the waltz stuff we learned last time which was good since I totally didn't remember some of it. On the whole it does feel more familiar than the tango though. The whole leading thing is hard for me, in that I'm not doing it. I'm supposed to just sort of be there until Roland 'tells' me to do something. But it's so hard to just stand there and be ready for...anything, you just never know what is going on in that head of his. Plus being very new at this he doesn't necessarily know how best to tell me what to do next. Then again there were times when I danced with the instructor and didn't really know what he was trying to tell me either. We are down to two couples now, so we got a lot of personal attention. I wanted to go to the practice that our instructor does on Mondays, but we didn't end up getting there and I was kind of bummed about it. I don't necessarily get out much since we moved to Florida and going to Disney and going out pretty much every night reminded me that seeing people can be kind of fun. Especially people I know, and the people from class are the people that I have seen the most often here.

Jason called today (yay). We are still trying work out a visit with him. I really really want to go diving and hopefully take AOW with him. I don't think Roland is super interested in taking AOW so it would be nice to have someone to take the class with. I found out to get my dream job at Disney I will have to be a Dive Master with good videography skills, so I better get a move on ;)

8 to 5

If you read (Lovefeast you read about our dance class and step size. I learned a long time ago about adjusting my step size, forward or backward. I was a band geek and like any self respecting band geek, participated in marching band. If you have ever marched you quickly discover that when going backward a person naturally takes small steps. In order to get the correct distance going backward one has to stretch a bit. So, having a tall partner and knowing that while he was taking his ba-giant steps forward I was going backward, I naturally adjusted my step size toward the long size. When I'm going forward I also automatically adjust my step size smaller because a lot of people don't realize that they are taking teeny tiny steps backward.

Apparently Pointy-Toe-Shoe-Lady was not aware of step size. She was taking steps backward of about 3". Luckily we were right next to her and heard the instructor tell her partner, with pretty much a straight face, that if she doesn't take large steps backward to just step on her. It was awesome, and so practical.

I also discovered one problem that I have. Naturally I have a slight out-turn of my feet. So when dancing the tango and waltz where the gentleman's foot is supposed to step between the ladies it increases the chances of me getting stepped on through no fault of the alleged gentleman. I wonder if I can adjust that?

Anyway, does anyone else out there do this dancing thing or want to? Do you actually go out and dance? How does that work? Do you go to lessons? What's the scoop?

All up ons

Dance class resumed this morning. I had a good time, but it was definitely harder than the first class. We went over the stuff we learned in the first class (tango basics) and also added some of the waltz. It was a little taxing both on body and brain. I don't know about Roland but I got a wee bit confused about some of the steps. I think we need to practice some before next week. Simon also handed out a card for where he does his other/main teaching. It actually looks reasonable in price (unlike the Arthur Murray Studios). I was considering after we finished this class and possibly some of the others that Simon teaches through Broward Community Education Roland and I could maybe take some of lessons there. I don't know what Roland thinks about that though. He might decide he has had enough and want to take some cooking classes or something. Then again I could take some more dog obedience with Bleys. I keep thinking I want to do therapy work with him, but I never seem to remember to call the humane society. I'm not sure he would pass the tests yet. He is great at home, but gets very distracted in busy situations. I suppose I need to take him out to busy places more often. On a happy note for some reason class is not held on the 3rd so we are going to be able to drop off P.W. and go straight onto to Disney! Woot.

After class we stopped by Roland's office, which is a little depressing because it is in the basement of the library and he hasn't really made much effort to move in due to the scheduled move to a new office soon-ish. After we got home I took Bleys for a long walk (he had been in his crate all day) which was nice. I sort of got off track with the walking thing. I was doing very well until Wilma (stupid Wilma). I was walking with Bleys in the morning and on the treadmill at the Mirage fitness center in the afternoon. But post Wilma it was hard to walk on the sidewalks due to debris (trees/glass/street lights) and there was no power to walk on the treadmill. Now that the power is back on and the sidewalks are mostly clear I only sometimes go on a walk with Bleys and haven't been back to the treadmill. Alas! For the last couple of nights I have been wondering what I can do to motivate myself again, but I haven't come up with much.

I am getting excited about some of the movies coming out soon. Both Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are must sees. Slight bummer, there is going to be an exhibit at Disney MGM on the Chronicles of Narnia (ok so that's a good thing) but it opens right as we leave. Oh well, I guess.

The puppy is being very cute right now. If he wasn't being cute on my lap I would find a camera and take his picture. He jumped up on the chair with me and has been scooting closer and closer to me for a while. Now he is sort of creeping onto my lap little by little and has his paw up on the computer like he is helping me blog. He is the cooterest-wooterest!

Leapin' Lizards

Stupid Wilma. No dance class this week. They have already cancelled classes this weekend and now Wilma isn't supposed to get here until Monday or Tuesday. Sheesh. I was looking forward to going and learning some waltz. Ballroom Bootcamp is on tonight though, so that's cool. This week is supposed to be three gentlemen learning the jive. Sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen! I think I will have to add Ballroom Bootcamp to the reality shows I would participate in. I think it would be fun, a tad stressful, but fun. Especially since real ballroom dance classes are so expensive (unless you do what Roland and I did and go community education, but then you can only go so far). I wonder if Simon has some sort of studio or something.

31 Flavors

Roland and I started dance class today. Broward County has a huge program for all sort of education of a community sort and we chose to take Tango and Waltz with Simon. I really enjoyed it! Of course we were just doing the easy stuff and it was pretty weird to dance with a bunch of men I don't even know, but overall very enjoyable. We tried to take a class back in Grand Rapids and it was pretty terrible. The woman was hard to understand (foreign accent in an echo chamber of a cafeteria) and tried to teach us a new dance every week. It was generally frustrating. This time we are only learning the basics to two dances with are related to one another at least a little. Today we focused on the tango and it was fun. Although I watched Ballroom Bootcamp, which was the tango this week, and I really didn't see the correlation between what they were doing on TV and what we learned today. I must not be 'seeing' what I should be.

It was very educational to dance with the other gents though. Of course it was pretty darn easy to dance with the instructor :) and very nice to dance with Roland ;) Most of the men weren't comfortable dancing as close to me as they should have and that made things interesting/harder. Also a lot of them were very droopy, no posture or anything that remotely resembling a frame. Roland has good posture, but is a little tall for me to lock elbows with, so I think I will need to wear heels to dance with him. The instructor was relatively short and most of the other guys were only somewhat taller than I am which was easier to dance with than Roland (as I was not in heels). Height aside, the best guys to dance with were they ones who had good posture and actually held me to them in dance position. It was so much easier to feel what they wanted me to do dancewise. I guess it's the same as a lot of things in life, even if you don't have confidence in what you are doing...fake it.

After that we stopped by a couple dive shops. I wasn't terribly impressed, one was okay, but the second was downright terrible. This evening I posted to ScubaBoard to see if they could help me. I guess we were spoiled at the West Michigan Dive Center. Hopefully someone will be able to point me to a place that will be willing to demo equipment and be more interested in getting me in the best equipment for me (and hence keep me diving and coming back to buy more stuff from them) than in pushing this or that item.

*I'm going to sign off now, my writing this evening feels very disjointed and generally not so great, I apologize if it doesn't read well either.*

UPDATE:
If you read Roland's Blog, you can clearly see that he is a better writer and much funnier than I am, but you should know that the instructor used me as a partner due to sheer proximity (we happened to be the couple standing right next to him).

Back off Baby

It is now October and its still a bagillion degrees and muggy here in Coral Springs. I'm having a hard time adjusting to the weather here. I woke up this morning to the sound of rain, but when I stepped out onto the porch it was more like a sauna than anything that could be described as brisk, or autumnal, or not-a-ten million-degree-sweat-bath. Very disconcerting for me. I wonder how long it will be before it doesn't seem quite so wrong. I feel like the wrongness is contributing to my general stressed-out-itude. It just feels wrong all the time even though intellectually I know its fine and normal for this climate. The internal dichotomy makes my head a splode. The rain also means I didn't go for a long walk with the puppy this morning, so he is a little antsy and bored.

Roland and I signed up for a community education dance class yesterday. It starts a week from Saturday and I'm hoping it will be fun. It is 8 weeks, but we will have to miss the last week due to driving to Disney World to meet his parents. It is Waltz and Tango class, we wanted a class that didn't have too many dances in it. Some of them purport to teach you the fox trot, merengue, cha-cha, tango, and salsa all in 8 weeks. Good luck. And since we already know the basic step of the waltz we figured two would be ok. Plus Saturday is a good day because it doesn't interfere with Roland's classes, meetings, or office hours. Its been tough because he is not on some email list that he should be on so he doesn't find out about meetings until the day of, and sometimes the minute of. But I'm excited, I really want the dance shoes I put on my wishlist now, but I suppose I should wait and find out if I'm any good first.