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dance update
May. 13th, 2008 06:57 amdance class last night was like something out of a christopher guest mockumentary. i swear. this is the class i've been taking where we're learning a west coast swing routine to perform in july at our studio's big monthly westie dance. i signed up for the class because i figured it was the closest i'd get to really learning something and working at it... all of the other classes i'd taken up to this point had been a bit on the boring side, because an "advanced" class here in philly is more like a beginner-to-intermediate class in boston... i wasn't learning anything new.
so, this choreography/"dance team" class is much closer to what i need. our teacher michael is a great choreographer, and the stuff he's having us do in the routine is pretty darn close to advanced. but that's where the comedy gold is mined from, because not all of the people in the class are advanced. or even close. which is fine, because everyone's in there to learn... but with our performance 6 weeks away, the gap between my classmates' abailities is becoming wider and wider. out of 10 of us, you have 4 of us who pretty much know what we're doing... another 3 or 4 who are practicing really hard at home so that they stay caught up, even if they're struggling... and the rest are just wandering around the dance floor with question marks over their heads. literally, last night i had to re-teach a few people some choreography that we had learned on the very first day (about 8-10 weeks ago). to make it even funnier, we have 2 people paired up who are the worst possible fit -- 2 older students, a woman who is really lost and a man who gets frustrated with her holding him back, even though he needs a lot of work as well. again, we're only 6 weeks away from the performance... so tensions are high, and last night he resorted to flat-out berating her in front of the class, over and over again, even though he was screwing up the steps as well. i give the woman a lot of credit, i would have left the class in tears... but she stuck with it and kept trying. but between her partner yelling at her, and my partner saying every step out loud so he'd remember it, i was exhausted by the time class was over. sheesh.
i've finally come to a decision... i need to switch from west coast to salsa. i'll still go to the occasional west coast dance, but this is just not a west coast town. i'll have a better chance of learning something new, competing again, and being exposed to amazing dancers if i take up salsa. sigh.
oh, and another lovely thing -- last night i checked on my "account balance" of classes at the sudio... i'd had that pinched nerve in my neck last year right after i started my membership, so i took very few classes for a while... but i had no idea just how few until last night. i asked the girl at the front desk how many unused classes i had banked: "what is it, about a dozen or so?" "uh... you have 50" she replied. 50. FIFTY classes i need to figure out how to use, and they won't put my membership on hold while i work down through them. that's about $700 worth of classes that i'll lose if i don't use them. so i need to hope that there are some salsa classes in my level that i can take back-to-back on a night when i can get there... or maybe see if they can let me put some of the classes towards the private use of one of the studios so i can practice my hoopdance. otherwise i'm screwed.
so, this choreography/"dance team" class is much closer to what i need. our teacher michael is a great choreographer, and the stuff he's having us do in the routine is pretty darn close to advanced. but that's where the comedy gold is mined from, because not all of the people in the class are advanced. or even close. which is fine, because everyone's in there to learn... but with our performance 6 weeks away, the gap between my classmates' abailities is becoming wider and wider. out of 10 of us, you have 4 of us who pretty much know what we're doing... another 3 or 4 who are practicing really hard at home so that they stay caught up, even if they're struggling... and the rest are just wandering around the dance floor with question marks over their heads. literally, last night i had to re-teach a few people some choreography that we had learned on the very first day (about 8-10 weeks ago). to make it even funnier, we have 2 people paired up who are the worst possible fit -- 2 older students, a woman who is really lost and a man who gets frustrated with her holding him back, even though he needs a lot of work as well. again, we're only 6 weeks away from the performance... so tensions are high, and last night he resorted to flat-out berating her in front of the class, over and over again, even though he was screwing up the steps as well. i give the woman a lot of credit, i would have left the class in tears... but she stuck with it and kept trying. but between her partner yelling at her, and my partner saying every step out loud so he'd remember it, i was exhausted by the time class was over. sheesh.
i've finally come to a decision... i need to switch from west coast to salsa. i'll still go to the occasional west coast dance, but this is just not a west coast town. i'll have a better chance of learning something new, competing again, and being exposed to amazing dancers if i take up salsa. sigh.
oh, and another lovely thing -- last night i checked on my "account balance" of classes at the sudio... i'd had that pinched nerve in my neck last year right after i started my membership, so i took very few classes for a while... but i had no idea just how few until last night. i asked the girl at the front desk how many unused classes i had banked: "what is it, about a dozen or so?" "uh... you have 50" she replied. 50. FIFTY classes i need to figure out how to use, and they won't put my membership on hold while i work down through them. that's about $700 worth of classes that i'll lose if i don't use them. so i need to hope that there are some salsa classes in my level that i can take back-to-back on a night when i can get there... or maybe see if they can let me put some of the classes towards the private use of one of the studios so i can practice my hoopdance. otherwise i'm screwed.
