More dance videos!
On Thursday night last week, I went to the 9:20 Special, our biggest weekly lindy hop venue in San Francisco. There was a competition that night, a "Pro/Am Competition", which meant that in each partnership one person had to be a pro lindy hopper and the other had to be an amateur. I wasn't planning on entering, since I considered myself to be an amateur (I've never placed in any national championships or anything), and I figured all the pro leads would have been taken by that night. However, I found out that the people running the event consider me to be a pro since I teach lindy hop, so after finding that out, I figured it'd be easy to find an amateur lindy lead to dance with in the competition. It was really easy, and I got lucky that my friend Justin agreed to do it with me because he was great. I had a lot of fun, and no, I didn't win anything, but the competition was pretty stiff! The couple who did win, only won because the "amateur" lindy hopper was a guy who'd been doing lindy for 11 years, but simply has never taught lindy before. I figure I'm fine with this outcome, since the prize money was less than I'd make in a month of teaching, so it wasn't a big deal. Anywho, here are videos!
This is the first song, which was a mid-tempo song. I'm on the far right, in a black t-shirt and jeans and you can see my short red hair (we start out bouncing up and down).
Second song we danced to, which was almost painfully slow, but it was fun nonetheless. We're in the center of the dance floor for this one.
The last song we danced to, which was a bit faster than the first. We're at the bottom of the screen closest to the camera.
I'm really tempted to save up some money to go to the International Lindy Hop Championships or the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown next year. Both events draw amazing dancers (lots of pros who are way better than I am) and I've been watching lots of videos fro ILHC this year (it just happened a couple weekends ago) and it's so incredibly inspiring. I'd love to get to dance with people who are better than me, and as much as this might sound snobby, there aren't a lot of dancers in SF to choose from who are better than me. It gets kind of depressing looking around a room at a dance venue and realizing that I'll only really enjoy dancing with a few of the people there. However, I am hopefully going to continue to teach (private lessons, possibly, as well as teaching at another one of our local venues, The Rent Party) since I enjoy it a lot and it's a good way to get some extra money. :) My friend Ben said he'd teach with me at The Rent Party, so hopefully we can come up with some good curriculum and rock it!
Oh, and so you get an idea of the caliber of dancers that are at events like ILHC... here's my top favorite so far of the performances I've been watching on youtube:
I'm in love with her swivels and her styling. I want to dance like her!
Click to viewThis is the first song, which was a mid-tempo song. I'm on the far right, in a black t-shirt and jeans and you can see my short red hair (we start out bouncing up and down).
Second song we danced to, which was almost painfully slow, but it was fun nonetheless. We're in the center of the dance floor for this one.
The last song we danced to, which was a bit faster than the first. We're at the bottom of the screen closest to the camera.
I'm really tempted to save up some money to go to the International Lindy Hop Championships or the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown next year. Both events draw amazing dancers (lots of pros who are way better than I am) and I've been watching lots of videos fro ILHC this year (it just happened a couple weekends ago) and it's so incredibly inspiring. I'd love to get to dance with people who are better than me, and as much as this might sound snobby, there aren't a lot of dancers in SF to choose from who are better than me. It gets kind of depressing looking around a room at a dance venue and realizing that I'll only really enjoy dancing with a few of the people there. However, I am hopefully going to continue to teach (private lessons, possibly, as well as teaching at another one of our local venues, The Rent Party) since I enjoy it a lot and it's a good way to get some extra money. :) My friend Ben said he'd teach with me at The Rent Party, so hopefully we can come up with some good curriculum and rock it!
Oh, and so you get an idea of the caliber of dancers that are at events like ILHC... here's my top favorite so far of the performances I've been watching on youtube:
I'm in love with her swivels and her styling. I want to dance like her!