because I forgot to mention it in Things I Love Thursday, here's what we learned on Wednesday, second to last beginner's class!
Mostly this is for Giffy's benefit, but I also find it useful to think about what new moves I know.
We were working on the basic six count, (rock step, triple step, triple step) for footwork and doing turns based on that.
First thing was doing a right hand pass where the lead swaps hands. This move is exactly the same for us follows, and the lead just changes which hand they hold ours with. This means you end up in a 'hand shake' stance instead of standard open. From this stance you can do tricky turns.
First turn, not sure if it has a name. different wind up rock step, with a twist to the right with the lead pushing in and then follow moves left, hand up meeting lead's hand palm to palm. The lead then 'draws a halo' around the follow's head with both our hands, twisting the follow around in a spin. This was easier than it sounds here.
The second spin started the same with a wind up rock step, but the lead puts his other hand on the follow's wrist to push and break the hold, letting the follow spin around unaided. This one was a little more difficult for me because a lot of the learning leads kind of got the idea wrong and would grab your wrist with their whole hand, which is not inducive to spinning, it more makes me stop dead. But! When I did it with the taxi dancer it was much easier and I got it down fine.
I was especially good at keeping my arms in the right place, so that when I spun back around it was easy for the lead to grab my hand again and resume dancing. All the practice spinning made me quite dizzy I have to say.
Then there was getting out of that hold again, and I've kind of forgotten how that happened, so I suspect it was something that I did the same but the lead had to think fast. I think it was a Lindy circle thing.
Lee says we had two ways to get into the different stance. I have forgotten the second one. I really was out of it on Wednesday night!
Next week we are learning 'the frog', a move where the follow jumps with help from the lead! Exciting!
Posted by jenni at May 24, 2008 11:46 AM