how are your lessons going? thread II

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Great group class and lesson yesterday, think i had a bit of a breakthrough in figuring out how to stretch and lift my spine without tensing up everything, and finally figured out what my multitude of coaches meant by being able to separate my lower half of my body from my upper body, so that i can keep lifted but still be flexible enough to move my hips and go strong in my lower body...HUZZAH! i am just hoping I can remember that feeling - will probably be trying to constantly recreate it at work today.....
 
Well??, took the various comp heels, braced my mental state, and pro was pretty pleased with my first time in 18 months doing rounds. The foot feels great (we did not push it) as we waited to do rounds at the end of the lesson time. You have no idea how relieved I am.
Worked on more detail in Waltz addressing body lines and such, VW was fun but challenging, getting better. Yea!
 
scullystwin42 said:
finally figured out what my multitude of coaches meant by being able to separate my lower half of my body from my upper body, so that i can keep lifted but still be flexible enough to move my hips and go strong in my lower body...HUZZAH!
Click to expand...

I remember when that went "click" for me.... awesome feeling, right?
 
Oh man, it felt brilliant. it was in a group class on tango, and then i was like HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII can i do this in everything? and practiced rhythm and then did a lesson in smooth and it felt SO GOOD. i want to make sure I never lose how that felt. I figured it out when my teacher had me his hands on his neck and back and did the extension and then i could recreate it....So i'm walking around work looking like i'm vogueing as i try to constantly recall the feeling.....it's so nice not feeling tense in my bloody shoulders LOVE IT PLEASE DON'T GO AWAY, FEELING.
 
With female pro, the lesson focused on knee action and use of the knees in collecting weight. With male pro, fixed a spot in the natural Fleckerls in Viennese Waltz and then he broke down every millimeter of CBM in the pivots we use in VWaltz. If I could put all the stuff together on knees, collecting weight and cbm - gee, that would be great.
 
double lesson last night, and was able to mostly keep the whole "stretching without tensing my whole bloody body" thing going. It felt so much more flexible and nice. and the drills the coach gave me last week showed improvement! Hilariously, my pro gave me a compliment, and ended up rephrasing it three times before I said "wait, are you telling me I did it right? Because i kept waiting for the 'this is what you need to fix' part!" and he told that he was trying to pay me a compliment. I'm so not used to it that i kept waiting for the "but this is wrong, do this different". there was much laughter. It was confusing because i was like, i thought i'm supposed to be doing what you are saying....and then i realized i was doing what he was saying.

the lessons this week have gone a long way in getting my confidence back and reducing my discouragement. I appreciate that my teachers took the feedback and tried to not make me feel like i have to get it RIGHT NOW or they will not teach me. It's not what they meant, but it's what had come across as. I love anyone who can take feedback and attempt to apply it.

reviewed the drills coach gave me to check that i'm doing it right, got some tweaks, so more more more of that. and also will be working on keeping that feeling of separating my upper and lower body to get extension. YAY!
 
Extra lessons this week. I'm on vacation and I'm making up some that I missed during the winter. Smooth New Guy last night. Tango--solidifying what we had worked on in the last two lessons. We also did some steps we hadn't done for a long time and it didn't take much tweaking to get them better than ever (which I love because it is an indication that my dancing really is improving). Then waltz and, once again, we did some things we hadn't done for a long time so my improvement was clear. Lessons with pro tonight. All waltz: pendulum vs metronome swing, sway in twinkle, better CBM, fun stuff like that.:) It really is fun. I am astounded both by how much better my CBM is and how often I have to be reminded to do it correctly.

As a side note, pro has sort of lost his mind. He has twice in the past week made references to my "natural" ability in rhythm and/or my having a "flair" for it. He has forgotten how long it took him to teach me cuban motion and the blood, sweat, and tears that has gone into it. Anything I can do in rhythm is a testament to his teaching ability and our combined perseverance. Actually, that's true of my dancing in general.
 
Lesson 2:

Such a fun lesson yesterday, I loved it so much!

We did more on the foxtrot and boogie. Learned to do promenade, quarter turn and side hover in foxtrot. Having a bit of difficulty recognising when my teacher wants to do a step - I catch it sometimes, but I'm easily caught off guard. Will have to come with practise, I guess - will ask him to show me the sign of him doing a movement again. Learned the change of hands and another movement in boogie; I pick up the signals much more easily here, I guess it's because they're less subtle!

Absolutely wonderful, so much fun. Just grinned the whole way through when we danced a full song to boogie. Loved it, can't wait for next week! :D
 
Ah, lessons... so full of random moments.

Moment 1 from last night:

We're dancing waltz. Pro indicates that we are going, so I go... and he stops, not liking the way that I went :rolleyes: Long discussion ensures about what exactly he didn't like, with me asking a zillion questions to try and figure it what he was trying to say... including a moment where we switched roles and danced the begining of my routine, with him in [his version of] full stretch.

Conclusion: I was creating a little too much space for him on the opening half natural, thanks to my really long legs. Taking a slightly smaller step took away his sensation that I was 'running away'. Had nothing to do with the speed at which I transferred my weight, and I wasn't doing anything odd with my upper body.

Moment 2:

We're still dancing waltz. We're doing the wall where I hang out in a big shape and we whip along in pivots... as mentioned in the practice thread, we've changed my 'neutral' position to be bigger... and pro reams me out for "standing up" (aka, going back to my old position). I can't really argue because, well, I did... but we have a talk about why. Basically, the 'new' position feels incredibly vulnerable for me. I'm hanging out in this big shape, looking at the ceiling and unable to see where we are going... and as we whirl in pivots, not only is my head way outside the circle (a little disorienting), I can sense that the wall is coming kind of close to my head... so I got scared and 'stood up' to where I feel safe.

Pro's conclusion: "It's good that you're scared." So helpful.
 
So after 2 weeks off sick and comp only five weeks away it was good to have a lesson. We tried jive and it just wasn't working so that is being focussed on next week. Quickstep went so much better and something just clicked with the footwork in the basic it was odd. Tango went a bit sucky but it was fixable to hopefully comp will be ok
 
Today was make up of lessons from last Friday (had to cancel because I wasn't feeling well). VW with Smooth New Guy, and, once more, it was just so much better than it has been. I was able to apply what we had been doing with swing and sway, CBM, etc. in the other dances and SNG and I were both very happy. Then Rhythm New Guy. We started with Mambo and it was the best that it has been. He was pleasantly surprised by how good it was though there was still plenty to work on. On to Swing, and after he fixed one thing, it was also much better. The one thing was telling me that I was supposed to use my ribs the same way in swing that I do in rumba, cha cha, and mambo. Somehow, that had passed me by. Don't ask me how. It made an enormous difference.

Tomorrow is a VW coaching with a visiting coach and Rhythm Guy.
 
Waltz and Quickstep are coming along! With all the work I've done to strengthen my legs, my knees are feeling a bit better, and it shows.....thankfully! We are now nit-picking on the little things, which is good. I think I'm going to be more ready than I've ever been for my next comp. :)
 
Took a class as a leader for the first time. Merengue.:) Everybody figured that since the dance is so easy it would be a good place for me to start. My head hurt by the end, but it was fun. Smooth New Guy was the teacher and he was very encouraging, as were the followers.

VW coaching was excellent. I had had a coaching with her sometime last summer and she agreed that my VW was much, much better than it had been then. After a few "you already paid for this" corrections--which we got through quickly--we were able to move on to new material. Happy!
 
Lessons were with Male Pro tonight. Worked on connection in Latin, as both leader and follower, and CBM in Standard as follower.
 
Lovely set of lessons this week with my pros. closed and open smooth. i love the improved shaping and large steps i can now take because of that for closed. Lot more fluid in smooth, all of the dance, and a visiting coach noticed the improvement, which is always nice to hear. Open foxtrot went well as well, trying to figure out how to apply all that shaping and bigness to the open moves. Fixed quite a few things. I need to practice today to remember it.

also spent time going through competition plan and practice plan. Happy with the plan, i have solid ideas and what to aim for. it's nice having dancing be my refuge again.
 
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