Peppermint Patty wasn't there...
But we had fun anyway. I went to the Peppermint Dance Club Saturday with a group of friends. I'm sometimes disappointed there because I don't know a lot of latin dances and it's so ballroomy there that what many of the people do there is not compatible with my folksier style of dancing. And even though as far as I can tell, there is no Peppermint Patty (don't know why it's called that) we had a great time since we had just enough people who were compatible with my style to achieve critical mass.
The lesson was ballroom waltz and I really had hopes of learning how to turn and move the dreaded box step (the box-step is rather counter-productive in a dance where you move around the floor since by it's nature, it wants to stay in one place) but that was not on the agenda. Did learn a decent sequence involving back-to-back/face-to-face, however.
In discussing the lesson later with a friend I think we may have figured out why many ballroom dancers are so weak in following: They teach sequences that are so long and complicated, starting in the middle of the measure, rather than the beginning, and ending in places that require you to do an extra few steps just to get back to basic, that students can memorize them entire but can't take them apart and use the parts as basic building blocks. So once a sequence starts, you are hostage for 12 or 18 beats and have to follow it all the way through to the end. Because of that, ladies get used to identifying the sequence, and then doing what they memorized for the next 6 or 8 measures instead of actually paying attention to what the man is leading.
On the plus side, I think I am almost becoming familiar enough with latin dances to be able to take what I know in one dance and apply it to another, and to improvise!! But I don't think I'll ever love rumba... too darn slow.
I got to do a wonderful polka, Viennese waltz and dirty blues with Toni, three dances I always enjoy, and another friend is getting into better shape after 5 years away from dancing that she now can do 3 or 4 quick dances in a row instead of getting halfway through and losing her wind.
The lesson was ballroom waltz and I really had hopes of learning how to turn and move the dreaded box step (the box-step is rather counter-productive in a dance where you move around the floor since by it's nature, it wants to stay in one place) but that was not on the agenda. Did learn a decent sequence involving back-to-back/face-to-face, however.
In discussing the lesson later with a friend I think we may have figured out why many ballroom dancers are so weak in following: They teach sequences that are so long and complicated, starting in the middle of the measure, rather than the beginning, and ending in places that require you to do an extra few steps just to get back to basic, that students can memorize them entire but can't take them apart and use the parts as basic building blocks. So once a sequence starts, you are hostage for 12 or 18 beats and have to follow it all the way through to the end. Because of that, ladies get used to identifying the sequence, and then doing what they memorized for the next 6 or 8 measures instead of actually paying attention to what the man is leading.
On the plus side, I think I am almost becoming familiar enough with latin dances to be able to take what I know in one dance and apply it to another, and to improvise!! But I don't think I'll ever love rumba... too darn slow.
I got to do a wonderful polka, Viennese waltz and dirty blues with Toni, three dances I always enjoy, and another friend is getting into better shape after 5 years away from dancing that she now can do 3 or 4 quick dances in a row instead of getting halfway through and losing her wind.