how are your lessons going? thread II

Status
Not open for further replies.
They are making me work hard. ;) I'm in the middle of two weeks of (for me) intensive work. I had some extra lessons and I'm using some of them to both take more lessons and have Pro coach New(er) Guy and me. It's been interesting. What I did this week was Pro on Monday, Pro coaching NG and me on Wednesday, and then NG today (Friday). The results are good, but at the moment, my dancing is slightly out-stripping my fitness level. (I'm working on that, but I have to be careful not to injure myself trying to do too much). At the moment, it's not so much new concepts in the lessons, but actually doing more of what I already know more consistently, plus adjusting my "default" to a higher level of dancing. "What? You mean you expect to dance at that level all the time? Not just for snippets?!?"
 
good lessons this week. post-comp rhythm had good specific feedback to practice. two latin lessons, since i'm doing bronze latin in a month at a comp and i need to learn it LOL. those went well. no pain in my knee during rhythm or latin, which makes is SO MUCH EASIER to dance.
 
Second week of more intensive lessons, including coaching at end of the week with an outstanding outside coach and New(er) Guy. My body handled this week well, but my brain has more or less exploded. :rolleyes: We started the coaching with Tango, and the first correction he made is something that I know I do in ALL of the dances, thus part of my brain is going, "Wait! Can we just go through everything and make that correction repeatedly???" Nope. Onto another concept that, once more I know needs to be applied in a lot of different places. Coach and NG kept on reassuring me that NG had everything under control. Nothing was entirely new, yet the result was huge improvements. Pro will be out for a couple of weeks, so NG and I can happily work though all of figures in all of the dances finding all of the places to apply each of the corrections. I have a competition with him in three weeks, so it's all good timing.... I hope. (I ALWAYS feel that I need a couple more weeks before a competition, and I'm sure this will be the same.)
 
Lessons have resumed. Pro is all enthusiastic and bouncy. FF is decidedly less so, and is still trying to figure out if she can/is willing to continue to work with pro. She does like the choreo changes that have been made to FT and TG. And somehow, her dancing has improved despite practicing standard a grand total of once in April.

Latin tech is coming along. The pro I've been working with there is so envious of my height and the lines that it lets me create that he's making me almost... proud of it. He's the first person I've worked with in latin that has encouraged me to step bigger, and to stretch, and to really use the whole length of everything I've got. Feels odd, but looks stunning (when I remember to do it!).
 
As I expected, New(er) Guy and I had a terrific time this week working on the material from the coaching last week. I feel like I did a good job of incorporating what was, to me, the most critical concept/correction. We finished today with 10 minutes of VW and during the course of that my body figured out how to use what I had learned in the coaching is a more natural way than I had been. The big question is whether I'll be able to start the next lesson where I finished this one. Even if not, having felt it once, it will be easier to get to next time. Then there's all of the other stuff from the coaching. :p NG gets a huge amount of credit for encouraging some of that "other stuff" this week, but not skewering me when it didn't come through. The nice way to put it is that I was not always taking full advantage of the lovely lead he was providing. Next week!
 
I got dumped by my pro last week. Tried out with 3 different pros since then. They all feel funny but they are very well connected if i wanted to "play the game." All seemed excited to work with me and said I was well trained. Hearing that actually made me a little sadder. I've gone through the same process I use for a real life break up: I've drank whiskey, listened to sad music to feel sadder, and went out looking for replacements.

The show must go on.
 
^Ouch. Sorry.

I think it's always a process getting comfortable dancing with a new teacher/partner. (I was fortunate when I had to switch: old and new teachers had similar backgrounds, liked each other's dancing quite a bit, and the at-the-time primary coach of one had been a primary coach of the at-the-time primary coach of the other. Thus, a lot of continuity.)
 
Last edited:
Lessons have been going well and my dancing has gotten better across the board pretty abruptly over the last couple of weeks even though I've been practicing significantly less (finals :rolleyes:). My coach's coach offered to sub in with me while pretty much the entire studio is away for three weeks at Blackpool so I'm really excited about that. It also sounds like the studio might waive the floor fee if I come in to practice while everyone is gone which would be awesome. It's definitely a trek, but I'll have a lot more time come summer to make it and is a much better space than the group fitness room at my gym.
 
Had a good last lesson before my coach heads out of the country for three weeks. Went over all the routines we've been working on (both solo and partnered) and she gave me a laundry list of drills to do while she's away for every dance. Spent a good time after the lesson talking about goals and future plans for when she gets back including adding Paso, thinking about competing (both her suggestions but neither of which I'm averse to), what I should ask my sub coach to go over, and her just generally checking in to see how I'm feeling about everything--which is pretty darn good at the moment.
 
rhythm lesson this week was drills for cha cha and rumba. very cool and gives me something new to focus on when practicing. latin was creating an open samba (already, holy cow) and practicing closed with a cranky pro. all except rumba went well - rumba i was like a drunk giraffe.
 
Another nice set of lessons with New(er) Guy this week, preparing for a competition next week and continuing to apply concepts from the coaching we had two weeks ago. This will be the first time I have competed with anybody other than my at-the-time primary teacher and I have had my moments of panic over it. To counter that, I'm in the process of re-reading The Inner Game of Tennis and and I was able to use a lot of the ideas in it this week. NG has been very cooperative about structuring the lessons so that I could do that. Even though he had not (yet) read it, he got the idea of directing one's attention to a particular aspect of the dancing and letting the learning take place naturally from there. He's reading it now. ;) No matter what happens at the competition, I've had a great time preparing for it and it's been very productive.
 
so I have been off the forum for a while but a lot has changed. After dancing 2 seasons on the university circuit and getting very frustrated I have changed teachers which has been an amazing move.
Last lesson I focused on my frame and quality of movement in waltz. In one lesson im finally starting to understand how to stack my body so i don't lean back but still get a nice shape.
Also going to Blackpool overnight to see amateur latin to get some inspiration
 
I had my last lessons before competition with New(er) Guy today. It's probably dawning on the poor guy what a lunatic I can be around competitions. Today we had to restart our first dance twice. I don't remember what I did the first time, but the second time my thought process was "Aagh! I can't believe I just made that mistake. Well, I can't worry about it today--it's not a priority. OOPS!" The "OOPS" was something egregious enough that it stopped us dead. :rolleyes: After I got that out of my system, however, it all got better and better. Fortunately, I'm usually more of a wreck leading up to competition than I am at the actual competition. All in all, I'm incredibly pleased with the progress that I've made the last month or so. Pro will be back next week and it'll be interesting to see how it translates to dancing with him.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Dance Ads

Advertise on Dance Forums Reach dancers, teachers, studios, event organizers, and dance-friendly brands. View ad options
Back
Top