how are your lessons going? thread II

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Had lesson yesterday afternoon. WCS swing coming along, am starting to feel the rhythm and the connection of the dance. Have workshops and coaching coming up in two weeks with nationally known WCS pros. Am noticing that I as improve, it's more obvious pro I am taking WCS lessons with isn't the pro who originally taught me the dance. Flow of movement and styling are divergent.

Also worked on AT. Pro came up with a decent first line that would work for almost any AT song. That is, a lot of AT songs read like yowling cats or nails on chalk board or a combination thereof. Still having moments when pro says I did something well, and I have no idea what I did, or I improvised something because I had no idea what to do. Pro says AT is like having a conversation, so apparently I'm saying something, and also follow has more freedom of expression.
 
I've sort of got the basics of WCS so I'm adequate at the "social" level (as in at a bar with a dance floor. ) We're working on styling, capturing the actual character of the dance. Gosh I'm slow and terrible with arm styling!
 
So just everything was going amazing. Both my teachers have moved back to their home countries with no notice due to partner splits. I am generally gutted as I finally found a teacher in each discipline who believed in me and had the right coaching style which would help me be a better competitor and at a bit of a loss
 
^That's terrible. I always try to have a back up plan "just in case", but you had just gotten settled into a good situation. Sorry!
 
I had my last lessons before a competition. I had a bit of a melt-down a week or so ago, and the way I get confidence and concentration back is to do detailed work, so that is what we did. Result is that my dancing felt really good by the end, but we hadn't done anything approaching rounds. Teacher: "Are you going to be OK with this?" Me, somewhat cavalierly: "Sure, we've got several sets of single dances for practice."

As a side result of the melt-down, I'm under directions to think about things I like about my dancing instead of concentrating on what needs to be improved. It's interesting how difficult and uncomfortable it is for me to do that, particularly when he was having me tell him what I liked.

The melt-down was at least partially caused by non-dance stressors, including that I haven't gotten reliable sleep for about 8 weeks. A friend had an emergency and I ended up taking care of her older dog who has epilepsy. And who sometimes needs to go out to pee when I am pretty sure I should still be sound asleep. He's a very sweet dog, but I am quite relieved that she will be able to take him back in a few days. I am so looking forward to sleeping at a hotel where (I hope) nobody will be waking me up early. I was very happy that one of the check boxes was for a "quiet room". Yes, please!!
 
@Dance Mad Helen if they are moving it is perfectly acceptable to ask them for recommendations on who you should try. They should be able to name someone with a similar style/great technique, etc. Doesn't mean you'll click with them, but it's a place to start!
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Last night I had the unusual double of a standard lesson with main pro, and a latin one with the pro from another studio I work with occasionally on technique and styling... so one lesson spent running rounds, basically, and a second focussing on one half of one dance. Quite the contrast!

I was once again reminded of why I work with this other pro. I learned so much in an hour, and he is so positive - talks about my strengths, how to show them off, never assumes that I can't do something, and manages to make a significant improvement in my dancing in a short amount of time. And he's relatively inexpensive. If he were taller, he might not be occasional pro ;)
 
FancyFeet said:
@Dance Mad Helen if they are moving it is perfectly acceptable to ask them for recommendations on who you should try. They should be able to name someone with a similar style/great technique, etc. Doesn't mean you'll click with them, but it's a place to start!
___
Last night I had the unusual double of a standard lesson with main pro, and a latin one with the pro from another studio I work with occasionally on technique and styling... so one lesson spent running rounds, basically, and a second focussing on one half of one dance. Quite the contrast!

I was once again reminded of why I work with this other pro. I learned so much in an hour, and he is so positive - talks about my strengths, how to show them off, never assumes that I can't do something, and manages to make a significant improvement in my dancing in a short amount of time. And he's relatively inexpensive. If he were taller, he might not be occasional pro ;)
Click to expand...
If only it was that easy. Basically these teachers were part of a dance school which is really well known in the uk and I joined in April. ATM I do feel obliged to stay at the school as I do not see a better option for me at this time. I have messaged one teacher with no reply about if he will be returning for guest teaching and will message the other. its a bit more complicated but dont really want to go to detail on here
 
post-comp lesson last night. Got a "good" from my pro for swing after watching the comp video, woohoo! cleaned up a few little things in cha cha and swing, but mostly it was watching the videos and talking. I am close in skill level to the person who got first - if I could get out there and compete a little more against her, I might have more of a chance. but alas finances and pro availability hinders that. Still very pleased with the dancing.

Also did latin, and to my surprise, we put together most of our cha cha routine. I was going to have it choreographed by my other pro but SURPRISE APPARENTLY NOT. this one is coming together faster than rumba and samba is, however.
 
WCS emersion weekend - workshop and party Friday, three workshops Saturday, and two coaching sessions Sunday. I'm exhausted. I was happy I kept up for the most part during the workshops. The workshops helped remedy a problem I was having with the basic whip - not one, but two teacher have commented on it. Asked coach to review during coaching and apparently problem solved. Coach also suggested some practice exercises to help tighten up the footwork. Coach also talked about how to better establish connection for WCS. Coach also said that my timing of the basic was off in a couple of ways - it's fine to highlight something - but not all the time. Coach also said that my free arm styling also looked like ballroom; that's going to be a project. Coach also said to have more fun with the dance; coach said I lit up when doing a freestyle demo, basically do more of that. So, overall weekend went well and was informative.
 
*Long post alert*

Typical pre-comp fight has happened. (It's unfortunately part of our process. I thought we might avoid it this time, but throw two high-achievers/perfectionists together in a high-stress situation, and well... :mad::punch::beye:)

I've been dancing a LOT over the last 2 weeks. I'm tired, after a few marathon sessions over the weekend. I hurt pretty much everywhere. Pro's a bit banged-up too. Last night was supposed to be my last lesson pre-comp. Pro was in a mood from the outset, which never bodes well. (His student before me had a few clashes too, which she told me about afterward.)

Standard was passable, though the floor got too busy to let us run QS all the way through (small children and wedding couples make us cautious, because they move in really unpredictable ways). At one point while attempting to work on it after several stops and re-starts, I declared this wasn't helping and we moved to latin... where I was apparently flubbing one part in my cha. I have a series of walks that I do on my own with pro behind me, and according to pro, I could not stay on music... despite me trying to explain that not only did I find the particular song he was playing challenging (on the slower end, with no clear, defined rhythm), it was simply not loud enough for me to hear as I got halfway down the floor, it was... not good. He got frustrated, I got angry ( did snap "WHAT?!?:" at one point :eggface: as he made a face and shook his head no for what felt like the hundredth time), then upset... le sigh. Quick-fix solution: we're going to do them in shadow position instead of apart, just in case it happens on the floor.

Lesson ended with a little bit of a make-up chat and a hug, as it tends to do when we clash. Pro was telling me that I just need to stay calm, because the mistake (which never did really get fixed) is not a big deal. I told him that he can help me stay calm by not getting frustrated and making a face at me when I make errors. He said something about not being frustrated with me, but with the mistake, because it 'was taking way more time than it should'. My reply to that was that it wasn't like I was doing it on purpose... and actually, I was giving this everything I had.

He wanted me to come in today, but I declared that I'm tired. I'm taking the evening off, chilling out, and forgetting about dance for a few hours. I agreed to go in Wed, to do mostly latin (esp. jive, which is way under-rehearsed as I've had the routine for 2 weeks - actually proud that I get through it without looking like a total idiot, honestly!) and some QS. I had planned to run a last practice for myself anyway.

Also, heat lists are out. If I weren't so exhausted, I'd be freaking out... too late to back out on this 10-dance thing now!
 
Apologies in advance for the slightly meandering post below:

Had my first lesson today after being out of the country for the last three weeks and it was actually better than my last few lessons before I left. My posture was better than before, I picked up a completely new Cha Cha routine with very minimal (for me) flubbing, and actually found myself laughing at my mistakes instead of giving myself the stink eye in the mirror—all of which made me I realize how much of a mental rut I was digging myself into before I left.

We’d had a few lessons crammed together before my trip without much time in between and made a few changes to most of my routines that just weren’t clicking with me—likely because I didn’t have as much time between lessons to take them home and drill them per usual . Instead of taking a step back and looking at the situation objectively I just doubled down, tried to cram an unreasonable amount of practice in each day, came into lessons tired, under-slept, and increasingly more negative (which is very much not me) and let the cycle continue until towards the end all I could fixate on was how bad each movement looked...even when I wasn’t looking in the mirror (in my mind’s eye it looked awful).

Do I still have lots of work to do? Yes. Am I waaaay more prepared to do it now than I was a few weeks ago? Definitely. I’m way happier I had the extended break (not just from dance but from physical activity in general) than I thought I’d be.
 
I hope I use the word right. Today we started by doing rounds. People who know and saw me might laugh if I said my feet placement and cuban motion are better than my arm styling, but what I mean by that is my styling is approximately at non-existent. I'm lucky to have a teacher with a flair for saying things kindly.... So he says things like it's "good social styling" (which I suspect means I don't ball my hands into fists with my thumb stuck out and then jerk my arms around like Elaine in Seinfeld.)

We're working on raising arm styling up above "zero" now.

Honestly, dance teachers who get middle aged beginners are definitely patient!
 
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