This really isn't going so well...

Ah, dancing. I haven't been in nearly four months. Scandalous, I know! I had a pretty crappy and busy spring, and really couldn't muster up the umph to go, and then summer came, and I was busy (I really do need to finish my summer posts! Sheesh!) and wanted to be outside as much as possible, not in some hot room with sweaty people! And then time passes along, and the longer I go without going dancing, the harder it is to go back... all my friends have been getting better while I've been sliding backwards, I'm rusty, the nights I purposefully kept clear for dancing got full... excuses excuses excuses...

But I've been trying to get back for a few weeks now. The Sea To Sky dance convention is coming up, and I'm hoping to compete again. Not gonna happen if I haven't danced in months! Two Thursdays ago I was planning on going, but I was all cold-y and really didn't feel like going anywhere. Last Saturday I was supposed to go, but was just too tired and opted to stay in instead. I was thinking of going on Sunday, but not many of my friends were going, so I bailed on that, too. Thursday was supposed to be a sure thing, but I got snagged up in a meeting at church that ended way too late to have any kind of decent time for dancing.

I did, however, have my friend and unofficial dance partner Chris over for dinner on Wednesday to do some practicing in my kitchen. Fun, but it kinda doesn't count.

So tonight, when Chris texted me asking if I was going, and told me that even though he was tired from playing Ultimate today, he'd go if I was going, I decided to ditch my housecleaning plans and head downtown.

HOORAY!

I grabbed my shoes and my water bottle, changed my clothes, and headed out. It felt so good to make the familiar trek from my free downtown parking spot (FREE!!!) to the studio, up those stairs, and into the studio. AH! So many people I haven't seen in SO long! I got lots of hellos and "Hey! You're back!"'s and I went over to put on my long-neglected dance shoes.

Except there was only one shoe in my bag.

What??? I looked around the studio. Nope, not there. I went back to my car in the pouring rain and rummaged around my trunk and the front seat where I had the shoes, fending off the homeless guy who is ALWAYS there in the back lane offering unwanted parking advice. (I really should learn his name. I see him EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go down there.) But alas. No shoe. I couldn't even dance in the shoes I had on. Flip flops (yes, in the pouring rain. I'm in denial that fall is here!) don't bode so well for dancing. I couldn't even dance in socks, which is sometimes done, as I wasn't wearing any.

DAAANG!

So I trudged back to the studio to say helloandgoodbye to all my dancing crew. I watched for a while, remembering everybody's own styles and watching people try out all the new moves they've learned while I've been away, then me and my one freakin' shoe went back home.

I was kind of concerned about where my other shoe got to, because I just went through my whole house getting stuff up to wash the carpets (that's a whole 'nother post!), and I didn't see it. Guess I was going to have to look again.

As I pulled up to my house and got out of the car, I saw it. My suede-bottomed dancing shoe, lying there on the side of the road, soaking wet from being out in the rain for over an hour.

But hey, at least I didn't see it till after I had RUN OVER IT WITH MY CAR.

*smacks forehead*

Ummm.... better luck next time?

PUMPED!

After this past weekend and the comps, I was wondering if there was really any point in me competing. Not cause I didn't think I could ever get anywhere (ok, well, kinda), but more just becuase I'm not committed to really practicing and improving so that I can win comps. I just like dancing fo rthe fun of it, and there are so many good dancers out there that are better than me. I'm SOOO not a competitive person. It was fun, but I wasn't sure I'd do it again.

Then my friend JR (hi JR!) sent me the scores from this weekend's comps, and guess what??? I nearly made semis! The called back 21 dancers out of 73, and I nearly made it! I was 29th of 73. Wahoo! Ok, so that doesn't sound too impressive, but at Sea to Sky in October I was a waaaaay down at the bottom. 39th of 50, I believe. Nowhere close.

Basically, the judges give you a call back/yes (1), a maybe (2) or a no (3). There were three judges at Sea to Sky, and they all gave me no's. There were four judges at Easter Swing, and I got two yesses and two no's. Score!

Kinda makes me wanna keep competing now! Hooray! Now, when's the next dance event???

Seattle Easter Swing

From 2pm to 2am Friday. From 9am to 4am Saturday. From 9am to 6pm then 10:30pm to midnight Sunday. Two competitions. COuntless performances. One midnight breakfast. Lots of friends. Hours and hours and hours of dancing. Two very sore feet. One fantastic weekend!

I competed in two categories this time around - Jack and Jill (unknown music and random partners) and strictly swing (unkown music but you choose your partner). They were both fun, and extra exhilirating when I was dancing in front of the 'home crowd' and they were yelling and cheering and screaming my name! So fun! I didn't place or even make finals, but who cares! It was a blast!

There was large group of my friends who went down, so it was great to hang with them all weekend, too.

I danced with eight of the pros, which, while fun, is still intimidating. "Gak! He's a pro! Don't screw up, don't screw up! AK! I screwed up! Oh shoot! Oh shoot!" Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

There was one dance, however, that stood out. I was sitting at my table with some friends taking a breather for a while, when a tall handsome stranger swooped down, sat beside me, and said, "Hello. I'm Jason. What's your name?" Stunned, I answered him. With a smile, he asked for a dance: "Hillary, I would love to dance with you." Uhhh, OK! He escorted me out onto the floor, hand on the small of my back, and asked where I was from. He was from South Carolina. Ah, that southern charm!

He was really good, but never once threw me a move I couldn't handle. We played with the music, hit all the breaks, and had a FANTASTIC dance. The thanked me, gave me a hug, and escorted me back of the floor. "Now, where did I take you from?" He complimented my dancing and waved goodbye.

The next day, he saw me in the hall and waved. "Thanks again for the great dance last night."

Ok, um, *swoon!*

Later on Saturday night, I was watching one of the pro category dances, and there he was! Holy crap! He was one of the pros!!! Heh, no WONDER he was so good! But the charm! Wow!

Videos were a big fat ol' no no in the ballroom, unfortunaltey, and there weren't even photos allowed during the comps, but they had a great photographer there who I bought some photos from. Hehe, here's me!

This is my friend Chris and I in the Strictly Swing comps.

Below is the Jack and Jill competion. I didn't know this partner. (Anne - this is the shirt I bought when I was shopping with you. I think of you every time I wear it! :) )

They had a "dollar dance" to raise money for a charity - put in some money and dance with a pro. I danced with six of them. Here I'm not having any fun at ALL dancing with Robert Cordoba. Woohoo!

Um, wow!

I was at a Christmas dance last night (of course!) and having a great time, as always. It was nearing the end of the night and I was dancing with my friend Michael, being very apologetic because I always seem to be dancing with him near the end of the night when people are leaving. Our two previous dances that night had been punctuated with me yelling my goodbyes and Merry Christmases to people as they left - which was just kinda rude (I'm sorry, Michael!) and also resulted in me missing more than a few leads. We laughed about it - he's a sweetheart - and I promised him a dance where I would pay attention to, oh, I dunno, HIM for once! SO there I was concentrating, when another friend JR (hi JR - this post's for you! Ya better comment! ;)*updated: go you! Thanks!* ) came and waved a piece of paper at me.

(click to embiggen if you want to read it)

Huh? Whatever, it's the new Swing Dance Club brochure. Surely I could look at it later. I mean, it's lovely and all, and has lots of great info about West Coast Swing, and is distributed at dances of all kinds all over the lower mainland, but seriously? Now? Then - in between whips and passes - I took a closer look. HOLY SMOKES! What? Uh yeah, that's yours truly. ON THE FRONT COVER. Buah ha! Hilarious!

Sea to Sky pics!

Click any picture to enlarge it. See the full set here.

The first night saw lots of dancing and lots of goofing around. I'm dancing here with Chris, Jason, and JR, respectively.
Competition time! I particularly like the shot of me appearing to sniff my armpit right in front of Jordan Frisbee, the best WCS dancer there IS (and not a bad looking one at that! D'oh!)
Lots of open dancing. I love the photo of the girl spinning!
Nooooo, we're not having fun at ALL!
Watching the pros blew my mind! Here's Myles and Tessa, performing their 2007 routine. I've linked to that video a few times before. Seeing it in person was phenomenal! The next one is Tessa and Kyle Redd. How I captured that moment I have no idea, but I'm sure glad I did! :)
Jordan Frisbee and Tatiana Mollman - the top westies in the world.Kyle Redd and Sarah VannDrake - my favourite workshop presenters for sure. I really love their style, too! And they're so gosh darn SWEET!
Jessica Cox and Myles MunroeMore spinning from Jordan and Tatiana (Tatiana is known for her awesome spins)
We stayed out till 4am on Saturday night. Wacky things go on at 4am. Like dance fighting. Wade and Ken had a smackdown. Michael's already nearly asleep, Ruth is just very, very, happy, and Chris has already asked me about 16 times if we could stop taking pictures and GO ALREADY! so I'm very grateful he's smiling in this picture!
Three thirty am. We then kept dancing for another half an hour. If you can call it that...
Lots of eating out, lots of workshops!
As if the weekend wasn't enough, Jason, Ruth, Michael, and I each did a private lesson with Kyle Redd (center) on Monday. We went out for dessert afterwards, and just had to keep dancing. So we did. In the restaurant. The bartenders clapped for us! :D

Ian, Stephanie, Jason, Ruth, Chris, Ken, Wade, Yvonne, and more!

Dance nerd

... and proud of it!

One great thing about going to Sea to Sky - the dance convention I attended a few weeks ago - was that I got to know a bunch of people that I see at dances around town a lot better. In particular I got to know some of the girls, which I haven't had as much of a chance to do because, well, I don't dance with the girls!

The weekend - my oh my, I haven't posted pictures, have I? - had large groups of us out for lunch or dinner discussing the various workshops and things we had learned. I think my favourite point was our dinner on the last day. There were maybe eight of us, all ridiculously exhausted and buzzing like crazy (buzzING, not buzzED! :P ) after such an intense, awesome weekend. We were sitting around the table at the Cactus Club and enjoying the groove of the music, all with only half an ear on the conversation because we were all counting "one, two, three and four, five and six" in our heads. Almost simultaneously, we all started raising our hands, pulsing them to the beat, mapping out the phrases of the music as we had done in one of our musicology workshops. When we got to the top of the phrase and dropped our hands to start again, we all kinda realized what we were doing, and probably how we looked to everybody else around us. Everybody busted out laughing, realizing we had spent the whole meal making ridiculous dance jokes and waving our hands around in the air in unison.

FAN-tastic!

Friday night I had another "dance nerd" moment. One of my friends just had knee surgery about two and a half weeks ago, so she's at home on the couch day in and day out feeling pretty bored. (Hi, Ruth!) I went over with a big bag-o-fun stuff to do - movies, games, ice cream - and it ended up being three of us as our friend Chris came over to hang out, too. We spent a good chunk of the evening talking about the pros and their style, discussing footwork variations and the totally gutsy move Chris tried on Tessa (the best westie dancer there IS in Canada), and watching west coast swing videos on YouTube.

It was the ultimate in dance nerdiness, and I loved it!

I'll post some pics of Sea To Sky later this week. Gotta spread out the posts, don'tcha know! ;)

Now's the time to learn!

I've gotten a few comments and emails about all my dancing posts and videos, so I thought I'd send an open invite to all you blogosphere folks who live in the Vancouver area...

There's a new West Coast Swing class starting this Thursday, if anyone wants to learn! It's taught by Myles and Tessa (whose videos I'm always linking to!). They teach in sessions - a new one begins every 4 weeks. If you're interested, check out this link - it's got some more info. (If it's too small, hold your muose over the image and click the orange "expand" box on the bottom right corner).

I'm doing the beginner class to fill in the holes in my basics (of which there are many!) So who wants to come dance with me?!?!? :)

(and no, I get no perks for referring people! I just think it's fun, and think you'll think so too! :) Heehee!)

Oh my poor feeties....

From 4pm Friday to 4pm Sunday, I spent 29 hours in dance workshops, watching competitions, and dancing. That's not counting lunch, that's not counting the 45 min nap I had to tak at 6:30 Saturday evening so that I wouldn't collapse, that's not counting sleep, what little there was of it. Twenty-nine hours of dance in fourty-eight hours.

My feet hurt. But I am on such a high right now! And it's not even over, because Kyle Redd, one of the pros, had so many requests for private lessons that he changed his flight to Wednesday morning and is doing lessons all of today and tomorrow, too. So I jumped on the "me too!" train and have a lesson with him this evening.

Squeeeee!


...... Aaaand, update to this, even before I published the post... my friend Jason needs a follower for HIS lesson tonight, so I'm going along to his lesson, too, immediately after mine. It's Jason's lesson, he just needs a body. So instead, I get TWO hours of lessons for the price of one.

Double squeeeeee!

Best Weekend of Awesomeness EVER

I am SO ridiculously excited about this weekend you can't even believe it.

I haven't written about dance for a while now. That doesn't mean I haven't been going, though! I haven't done my Sunday night classes since the end of July, partly cause of being away a lot in August, and then come the fall, I really wanted to work on brushing up on my technique and breaking any bad habits I'd developed before I continued to learn some new moves. I've been going dancing at LEAST once a week, and now I've signed up for something a little more intense...

So remember when I got all star-struck about dancing with Tessa a few weeks ago? Well I heard that her and Myles were having a special on a series of six private lessons, so I went in with a friend and splurged. I've had two lessons with Tessa so far, and they have been BRUTAL (in a good way, but totally intense! Isn't that clear?!). Nothing like having the Canadian champion of west coast swing (WCS) telling you to go ahead and dance with your partner, knowing that she is standing there looking on, taking mental notes about every little thing you do. Eekers!

Turns out she had a lot to critique. Uhm, yeah. It turns out I didn't even know how to put my FEET down on the FLOOR properly, and I apparently dance like Priscilla Pelvis. *snort* More on that one later, and on my homework from the first two lessons: 1) Dance with your fridge and 2) Stick a ruler down your pants. Suffice it to say that there's a whole lot of basics I need to work on.

So what does all that have to do with this weekend, you ask? Well. Let me tell you.

I'm going to my first ever dance convention. Kinda like dance camp. Except awesome-er.

It's an entire weekend of dancing, workshops, competitions and demos. As if that's not cool enough, the thing that's so exciting about it is that the best WCS dancers in the WORLD are coming. The top four couples, and many many other well known names - both from here and elsewhere - will be competing and giving workshops. If you search on YouTube for "west coast swing," you will see the names Jordan and Tatiana, Kyle and Sarah, Parker and Jessica, and Myles and Tessa come up over and over. They are ALL going to be there! Squeeee!!! And yes, I've gotten over my star-struck phase! ... mostly, anyway! ;) I'm excited to get to learn from these dancers and see them compete. They are absolutely amazing. (Their names link to a video of each, for some context. If anything, check out Myles and Tessa's. The first link is to a choreographed routine (they won!) and the second is to an improvised one.)

From 3pm Friday till the wee hours of the morning (I think they shut the dance down at 5am), then from 9am Saturday into the wee hours again, and then again from about 10am on Sunday till 6pm, I'll be dancing, learning, dancing, watching competitions, and dancing again. SO! FUN! (Then at 7:30 Sunday night, I'm going to see Rodney Atkins, Taylor Swift, and Brad Paisley from freakin' ROW 25 on the FLOOR!!!!!! Not really about dancing, but also part of the Best Weekend of Awesomeness EVER, so it totally counts!)

But even MORE fun (and excruciatingly terrifying)??? I'm going to enter my first ever dance competition on Saturday!!!!!!!!!!! Holy SHNEIKE!!! I'm entering the novice level Jack and Jill competition, which is where dancers sign up as either a leader or a follower, and then draw a random partner to compete with. Dancers are judged as individuals in the preliminaries, then as a couple in the finals. I'm not expecting to get into the finals, but still the experience will be totally worth it! I'm gonna dance with a number on my butt, baby!

Man, if you told high school me - whose only dancing experience was grudgingly doing the mandatory square dance unit in PE - that I'd be COMPETING in a DANCE contest? Wow, that would have been the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard in my entire life.

But that's me! Totally ridiculous. And TOTALLY PUMPED for this weekend.

WAAAAHHHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

UPDATE: Here's a video, cause I know you probably didn't click on those links! :) This is Myles and Tessa last month. The dance is totally improvised.



Update to the update: And just cause I can't stop... this one (NOT in the links above) is them doing Lindy Hop for the first two mins, then West Coast Swing. THIS is a fun video. It makes me grin every time. How she moves her body like that is beyond me.

The dancing! It's back! I'm happy!

Before last night, I have been dancing exactly ONCE in the last six weeks. It's scandalous, I tell you, SCANDALOUS! I've been taking West Coast Swing lessons for a year now, and am a total addict. So last night, I was really excited to get back into it.

Of course, six weeks with no dancing and that means I'm tripping all over my feet, but hey, what are you gonna do? It was fun to see all the 'regulars' last night, many of whom gave me "hey welcome back, I haven't seen you in a long time" kind of greetings. Cool!

Maybe my second or third dance, J asked me to dance. Now, J is SUPER fun to dance with, even if he sometimes turns on the smarm a bit too much. But he's a smokin' dancer and easy to follow, so I always get a kick out of dancing with him. So he asked me to dance and I prefaced it with, "Ok, but I haven't danced in a month and a half, so BE NICE!"

Well.

That was pretty much an invitation for CrazyGoNuts. It was all I could do to keep up with him, and once he spun me SIX TIMES! SIX! How I didn't fall over is beyond me! And it wasn't West Coast that we were doing. I had no idea what dance we were doing (I thought maybe lindy?), I was just trying not to die. BUT, he dipped me and I didn't nearly knock him over like I did last time he tried that. Yay me! Turns out it was East Coast Swing.

"Thanks, that was fun! ... but what WAS that?"
"That was east coast!"
"Aaaah."
"Yep. You kept trying to do West Coast, but I wouldn't letcha."

Schooled!

But that was NOT the biggest schooling of the night. That one was just funny.

About halfway through the night, Myles and Tessa showed up. Who the heck are Myles and Tessa, you ask? They're the Canadian West Coast Swing Champions. Baaaasically the swing gods of Canada. And regular freakin' people, but apparently I am not good with celebrity. Heaven help us all if I ever end up talking to someone famous.

OhMyGoodnessILikeTotallyKnowYouAndOhMyGoshICan'tBelieveYou'reActuallyTalkingToMe
AndOhWaitMyChanceToSaySomethingIntelligentIsNowLoooongGone.

The following words actually came out of my mouth last night: "Wooow! This is so exciting! I've only ever seen them on YouTube!" (here and here, for example)

WHAT KIND OF A NERDBALL AM I??? Hehehe

So they are PHENOMENAL. But they are also not stuck up in the LEAST and go out and dance with everybody, of all skill levels.

People like me.

Tessa asked me to dance (she leads, too). It was totally fun - she's hilarious! - but TOTALLY intimidating. Woah. She asked me how long I'd been dancing. I told her a year, but really really wished I'd said about half that, cause 'member what I said up there about tripping over my feet cause I'm rusty? And about not being good with celebrity? Well put those together and 1+1 equals, oh, I don't know, about 3782 on the scale of awkwardness.

She lead me in a little run-and-slide move thing, but I slid too early. Ever the student (shut up and dance, Hillary!) I was all, "Oh, now, see, I slid too early there!"

And that, folks, is when I got schooled by Tessa Cunningham:

"Yep! That's because you don't wait for your lead!" *hangs head in shame* hehehe

Aaaand, so it's official. I am now signing up for their lesson series. I've been told it's really good for people who have been dancing a while to not just learn new moves but also to correct any bad habits. Like not waiting for the lead.

At least it wasn't just me who finds it intimidating to dance with her. She danced with a friend of mine right after me, and after that he walked towards me and we both gave each other the "Holy Crap! was that ever intimidating!" look and proceeded to talk about our respective foibles.

Sheesh. ONE day hopefully I'll be cool enough for this NOT to be a big deal. *arms flapping, spoken in a squeaky teeny bopper voice:* I danced with Tessa! I danced with Tessa!" I'm rolling my eyes at mySELF here, don't worry. hehehe!

Ah, but was was SO nice to be back dancing again. My big toes full of blisters beg to differ, but I'll beat them back into submission soon enough.

Starting tonight! More lessons! More dance! Bring it on!

A little bit glamour, a little bit Red Green

Last weekend I bought dancing shoes. I figured that I've been dancing now for nearly 10 months, it's probably about time I bought proper shoes. I had done a little bit of looking around, and knew what I wanted: strappy, black, with a low-ish chunky heel. The heels were critical. I can't even stand in high heels, let alone walk, let alone dance! I kinda like my ankles. I prefer not to break them.

I found a store in town that had what I was looking for, and so when the right size came in, I scooped them up.

As soon as I got them home, I put them on. "Ooooh! Preeetty!" Not one to have really had strappy fancy shoes before (what is wrong with me?) I don't think I'd ever seen my feet look so pretty! *giggle*

It was perfect timing, as I was going to a dance on Saturday AND had my lesson and dance on Sunday. Sah-weet!

Off I went to the dance, a little wary of blisters, but I had worn them around the house during the day, and they felt great. And they were great. OH what a difference suede-bottomed shoes make to spinning. I could twirl and twirl and twirl! And I could slide! One of my favourite people to dance with, Chris, and I did a bunch of that, it was SO much fun! Side by side, arms around each other's shoulders, we'd step, step, run-run sssllliiiide, one foot out in front of the other, both of us totally laughing and having a ball. I mean, uhm, looking like serious professional dancers. Yeah.

That is, until about halfway through the evening, when that pain on my heels became unbearable. I was dancing with another friend - Dancin' Dave - and with the first step, I was wincing. He asked what was wrong, and I told him I had brutal blisters forming on my feet. He whisked me over to his magical dancing bag which he keeps stocked with protein shakes, bandaids, and a plethora of other random emergency supplies. "Yeah, I just have the small bag tonight," he told me as I marveled at the fact that he had come so well prepared. "In my other bag I've usually got a sewing kit and a few extra women's heels and tools to fix them, too." Dancin' Dave is a miracle man!

So, my bandaided feet all set and ready to go, I kept on dancing. And dancing. And dancing. But bandaids were just not gonna cut it. My shoes decided to munch up my feet pretty good that night. Munch munch munch! I'll spare you pictures of the holes they wore in the backs of my heels and across my toes. It's not pretty. And it hurt like FIRE.

I had to wear capri pants so the hem of my pants didn't touch the open blisters - like FIRE! FIRE, I tell you!!! - and I didn't wear closed-heeled shoes for a full week afterwards.

Tonight is my dancing lesson, and I need to be prepared. So off I went to London Drugs to pick up round two of foot care (round one were the bandaids and blister pads I tried for last Sunday's class that all just rolled off and caused even more pain on my mangled feet. I gave up on the dancing shoes half way through the lesson.). Round two - pad the shoes, not the heels. I bought these sticky foamy pad thingies that glue in to the back of the heels and supposedly keep your feet from slipping and prevent (more) blisters, and little gel strips that glue onto the underside of the straps. I have so much gunk glued into my shoes right now it's not even funny.

Why all the effort, you ask? Cause the shoes are PRETTY and they help me SPIN and darnit, I WANT PRETTY FEET when I'm dancing! (That, and the shoes were NOT cheap and are not returnable.)

There's the glamour. Black strappy shoes, red painted toes, spinning girl out on the dance floor. But where does the Red Green come in, you ask.

For those of you not familiar with Red Green, he's Canada's favourite handyman. (Click the link. It's great!) Some of his favourite sayings? "If the women don't find ya handsome, they should at least find ya handy." And, "If it ain't broke, fix it till it is!" Those of you who know Red Green know that he has a "secret weapon:" Duct tape!

And hoo boy, is that stuff good for everything. Including blistered feet. Blister pads roll off? No problem! Sick 'em on then cover 'em up with duct tape! Works like a charm. No way no how that duct tape is gonna slide off. Dancing tonight? No problem! I'm SET!

Update! (cause ya know... you really wanna hear MORE about my feet...) Holy smokes! Even the duct tape slid off eventually. But I could replace it and it lasted me another 4 or 5 dances. Score! I have small blisters accross my toes again (the gel bits under the straps rolled off as I was putting my shoes ON. Don't waste your money) but those are bearable. My heels are a little sore, but good. Yay!

OH! How I love dancing!

Yes, I KNOW how lame this makes me

After I got home from work yesterday (past 8pm - MAN, I can't wait till report cards are done!!!), I checked my crackbook facebook account. Oh, yay! A new friend request. Who could it be, who could it be??? It's been so fun catching up with all kinds of people that I haven't seen in ages, so I was looking forward to the surprise.

And surprise is was!

Tessa Cunningham?!?! Requests to be friends with ME???

OK, yeah, yeah, so most likely none of you know who Tessa Cunningham is, so let me enlighten you. She and her... husband? partner? man-dude? live in Vancouver and are Canadian West Coast Swing champions. She's one of the biggest wigs in the Canadian swing dance scene. HO-LEE!

Now I KNOW that this was a generic add, as I had just joined a west coast swing group and I've never actually met her, but it still was totally fun. I mean, er, clearly my dancing reputation has travelled all the way to the Canadian champs. Yeah, that's it... HA!

Tessa and her partner, Myles Munroe, are around at swing events all the time and are really down to earth people, I'm told, so I'm looking forward to meeting them one day. For now I can pretend that I really DO know them.

She's on my facebook, I mean, come ON! ;)

See Myles and Tessa in action here and here.

Mission Accomplished

So... judging by the vast array of comments on that last post, it was a widely popular one... ;) Ok, so only I found it funny. Oh well!

Moving right along...

I have officially passed my obsession on to my students.

I've been teaching them West Coast Swing dancing in PE for about the last month, and it's been absolutely hilarious! They've done so well! (Well, after they mostly got over the sheer revulsion of having to touch a girl's or boy's hand. OH! THE HORROR!

Any time we learn a new move in class that is a little bit tricky, or makes up somewhat self conscious (hello, body wave), our instructor brings out a great line, reminding us that it will not be perfect the first time: "You've got to go through the swamp of ugly before you get to the land of cool." I've been using it with my students. Last week, as I was excitedly praising them for how well they were doing (they improved a lot, all of a sudden, it was great), one of my students asked, "Miss Hillary, are we out of the swamp of ugly yet?"

I busted out laughing and assured her that yes, they were well into the land of cool.

I wanted to show them what West Coast actually looked like, and because bringing my instructors in was too expensive/not feasible, I asked around to a few of the guys in my dance class if they'd like to come to my school and do a demo with me. Chris was available, and willing, so he came to the school on Friday (his day off, at 8:30 in the morning - yay Chris!!!). It turned out to be WAY better than just having the instructors come, too, so I was glad!

We split the kids up and taught them some new fancy footwork (syncopations) to try with the moves they'd already learned. He did great - he jumped right in there with me, teasing the kids, helping the not-so-coordinated ones with their steps...

The other grade 5 class came in towards the end of the class and I got a few volunteers to do a demo. They were SO GOOD! And it was sooo cute to see them dancing together! Aaaah!

Then Chris and I did our demo. Yeah, dancing in front of 50 kids was intimidating! But also fun. The very first spin I did, they all cheered wildly, and I almost lost the beat cause I was laughing so hard. I tried taking a video to show y'all, but, er... I didn't think to check the batteries, and got only the first 30 seconds or so before the camera pooped out. D'oh!

Afterwards, I had the kids write thank you notes which we put into a big card (it's more like a book, actually!) for Chris. Their notes cracked me up; here are some snippets from a few:

... I wish you can teach us dancing all day [says the kid who NEVER pays attention and is totally uncoordinated!!!]
... and the fancy footwork you taught us were cool but also hard at first but then easy
... It feels better when we get our own fancy demonstration
... Do you get dizzy when you spin?
... Thank you Chris for Dancing even though you had a day of you SPent time dancing with us
... I liked that you came because Miss Hillary could teach us girls and the boys or girls didn't have to wait. Also because she didn't have to switch her brain [I was constantly switching between leader/follower parts and kept getting mixed up!]
... I never knew there were so many cool dance moves!
... The move that you did with Miss Hillary was cool! lmao (laugh my ass off) :) :) :) :) :) :) [she asked me not to read her note. Of course that meant I was gonna read it, and pronto. "Uh, yeah, you need to change the language here." *sheepish face* "Okay." She erased it and covered it up with smiley faces, but you can still see what was written underneath. Hahahahaaa!]
... You are a wonderful dancer and your in the land of cool already way to go!

Aren't they sweet? One student drew a picture of two people dancing. It's fanTAStic. I love the eyes and sly tipped up grins. Heeheehee!

I don't think most of them will ever admit it, but I think they enjoyed learning this dance! Obsession handoff - complete!

Dancing, dancing, and MORE DANCING!

Oh no, the obsession has not cooled off. Not one bit! Some weekends I go out dancing TWICE - Saturday AND Sunday! It's glorious (though my feet hurt for three days afterwards!). We only have one more class in level three left and then it's on to the next session! Er, which is another level three... Basically, once you get to level three, you stay there. Each session they teach you new things, so it's always new. There is a level four, but that's for super duper serious dancers, or jsut those who are really good and want to learn much fancier stuff - moves, styling, etc. I may think about that at some point, but I'll do level three for a while yet.

But! BUT!! BUT!!!

I think I might start a new dance class, too! We had a mini funk lesson tonight after the swing lesson, and it was SO FUN! Before, I would never have had the... I dunno, the confidence, I guess, to do that. There's so much attitude involved in that, and I really would have felt that it's just not "me" and been really self concious. But that has been changing with doing West Coast Swing, and I've really been enjoying it. I think I may like to funk it up for a bit... get the 'tude going, heh heh! PLUS, it would be so easy to take some of those moves and teach them to my grade 5's. West Coast Swing would be too hard, but funk? Now THAT they can do! Plus the fact that it's called "funk." They'd be all over that.

But now, I must take my tired and aching legs to BED! If they don't give out on me first!

Bits and Pieces

Bloggger is getting sneaky. I went to sign in and they're trying to force me to switch over to the new beta-but-not-beta-anymore version. This scares me. Those of you who have done it, have you had any problems with custom stuff in your template and everything? What do you love? What do you hate? I WAS going to post some "Help! How do I NOT switch yet?!?!" comments, cause it looked like there was going to be no choice. But ah-HA! I wormed my way around switching this time. Bah. I don't like change, apparently....

... which leads me to my next point. It's becoming increasingly obvious that I need to get a hair cut, and stat (yeah yeah, "Shut up and DO it, Hillary," I know, I know. I have no regular hairdresser. This apparently is traumatic for me.). But I'm becoming a danger to people on the dance floor. I think some of the regulars that I dance with have adapted some of their moves to avoid getting whipped in the face with my pony tail when I spin around. I don't think that's a good sign!

And about the dancing. Yes, I've raved about it before, but I'm definitely hooked, and L-O-V-I-N-G it. So glad I went for level 3. We're learning all kinds of fancy shmancy stuff. This is evidenced by the names for the new moves, which are getting more and more complicated. Gosh, what was tonight... a neck wrap two hand cross bow side split double back half whip non fat extra shot or-ange mocha frapp-a-chi-noooo ... no, wait... that went wrong somewhere along the line... Who knows WHAT they're called, but they sure are fun! A few of us even went out to a real live dance LAST night, too! Hehe. It was kind of intimidating at first, but super fun! But my FEET hurt tonight, let me tell you.

So the rest of my week was much calmer, after Tuesday's near breakdown. This first year teaching (well, with my own class, anyway) is an interesting beast. It jumps up and tries to gobble me whole sometimes. I'm slowly but surely learning to beat it down. ah-HA! Take THAT! Anyway, thanks for all your kind words, it was much appreciated!

The day after my freakout I left work early and went for a walk along the beach, and took some time just to chill out, watch the sunset down at Kits Beach, and take some time to breathe. Venting, my time at the beach (there's just something about the ocean), and an encouraging conversation with a friend (thank you) definitely helped me get back to "ahhhhh" levels again.

The weekend has been fantasterriffic, too... a swanky launch party for a friend's website on Friday night (oh WAIT till I tell you about his site... SO cool!!!), tons of marking on Saturday, dancing, church, more marking, more dancing... oh yeah, baby! And, as much as I whine about having to prep for a sub, I'm taking my half day lieu day Monday afternoon, so I'm done tomorrow at noon. Gonna go back to the beach, go for a run in the sun, and settle in for some more marking, trying to dig myself out of the pit of behind-ness I seem to have gotten myself in.

*does a little happy dance*

Lookout! Here comes Monday...

Apparently I'm going for the insane-o of the week award

So.

Level 2 of my west coast swing dancing class is almost finished. Near the end of level 1, I posted a few videos of some pro swing dancers in action. Well this time round I've found a series on YouTube called Move of the Week, where they teach you a new West Coast Swing move, you got it, every week. (They're all just 30 second clips, and be sure your sound is on)

For example, there's this one.



Looks kinda tricky, but pretty sleek if you can master it.

But then there are these. It's like swing dancing on drugs. Or at least really really drunk. The first one is called the Turtle.



Oh but it gets better. Here's Eggroll Swimming.


And the piece de resistance in classy sleek smooth sexy west coast swing dancing is here.


This makes me laugh out loud EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And? Did anybody think it was really weird that that brontasaurus has six toes? Do brontasauruses (brontasauri?) even HAVE toes???

If only we looked this cool

Here's a clip of some West Coast Swing dancers. I do NOT look like that... maybe by the end of level 2. ;-) (hahahahaha!!!) But hey, at least we have a goal to work towards, right? :)

Want to see more? Try here (I LOVE this one!) and here. And Holy SMOKES... THIS is what you can do with a choreographed routine. Wowzers.

Signed up!

I just got home from my last West Coast Swing dancing class. It has been an absolute blast. Dancing is never something I've done before, in part because I just never saw myself as someone who would be good at it (thankyouverymuch high school PE classes. Agk.) and partly because I've jsut never had/made the opportunity to do it. I wanted to do ballroom dancing in university, but I could never find anyone to go with me.

So long story short, I am now moderatley confident that I won't make a TOTAL fool of myself if I attempt to dance with another swing dancer. As long as they understand I'm a beginner and are nice to me! (I had a rather unfortunate incident with a much more advanced dancer a few weeks ago, but SHH, we won't mention that...) And of course, dancing with anyone at my own level is great!

Tonight was the last class of level one, and I was all sad, because I didn't think I was gonig to do level two untill mid to late January. But no! The three friends I've been going with and I are all signed up for the level two class that starts next week! Yipeee!

Bring on the whips*!

__________
* It's one of the dance moves - get your mind out of the gutter! ;)

Success!

I have officially survived my first week! Yes! I've been at school ridiculous hours this week, and hardly any prep or marking has even started yet, so I'm a little scared of what, oh, I dunno, report card time will bring, but I guess I'll drown under that load cross that bridge when I get to it.

I've met a few parents already, most who I had already met, albeit briefly, when I was teaching music. They've all been really nice so far, though I've been warned about one parent. But I've also been told about how to deal with this parent, so it'll all be good. I hope!

I've had a few parents come in to tell me a little bit about thier kids, which I appreciate. One parent added that his kid was a little worried about having me, specifically, as a teacher. He assured me that he had no concerns, though. I laughed - I had this child's class last year for music, and the class was a really tough one, so I always felt like all I did was grouch and gripe at them the whole year long, so yeah, I can see why the poor kid would be concerned! I have since been assured that this child now thinks I'm "pretty nice." Yesss!! Oh these poor kids. They still are pretty little. I have to try to remember what it's like starting a new school year: new teacher, new classmates, best friends in other classes... They're still pretty nervous, I think!

In other news, I've signed up for a dance class on Sunday nights! Who'da thunk it! The same friend that sucked me into going to an Irish Calieh (or however you spell it) - which I thoughroughly enjoyed - sucked me into an 8 week "Funky Swing" class. There's a whole group of friends going, and it's going to be a blast! I can't wait!

You'd think his legs would get tired

This guy's crazy idea to make a video where he danced in every place he travelled to got picked up by a gum company and got him a sponsored trip around the world to dance... and dance... and dance...

(video will now play from this page, just click play!)