Current lessons are great! I thought I'd made progress on smooth before the windy city competition (well... I had made progress... ) But really... things weren't so great in competition.
I still pulled on my partner too much, and sort of "reach" when I move instead of pushing (if this makes any sense.) The result is a certain amount of "wobble" and so on. So I told my pro that we need to focus on just technique for a few weeks. I don't want any patterns above Bronze II in the syllabus. Just things I can work on frame, footwork and so on without having to worry about anything else. I 'm doing this for rhythm and smooth.
I also decided that I need to visit my 88 year old mother once a month. She's fine which makes visiting never urgent-- but at the age where someone should stop in from time to time. (She has three kids who visits locally, so I won't be the only one seeing her. But I need to visit once a month come hell or high water!).
She happens to live in Libertyville and lives quite near a good dance studio. So to motivate myself for the somewhat long drive there ad back, I set up an extra lesson at studio in Libertyville. I had another reason, a former voice teacher had told me that voice department where she studied (Brigham Young) insisted students cycled through teachers and I figured having two with different personalities, and approaches could only help. I took a "technique only" session with in Libertyville and some here in Naperville. It's actually working great.
Interestingly, I chatted with one of the owners at the studio in Libertyville and told her my idea about more than one teacher. She said at their studio, they require students to have two teachers also. ( Her list of reasons included: (a) teachers can become partially blind to their own students fault-- the other one sees them, (b) students get so used to one teacher they don't really listen, (c) everyone does have some particular style and so on. I definitely have to cop a plea to (b). I'm guessing another reason might be that there are students who might want to say "I just want Don Johnson", and requiring two might fix that a little. I didn't request Don. I'd dropped in a group lesson and I knew I liked Dascha.)
So far, I've only done two teachers on rhythm, but I'm getting my feet together better, I'm actually (sometimes) getting all my weight on my leg before turning, I'm (sometimes) settling after I turn and so on. Now when my pro-teacher leads me, I can feel much more balanced. He's happy about it too!
It's very limited patterns and just fundamentals for through the next few weeks. If that means I do nothing Bronze II in our studio's upcoming medal test, so be it!
Of course, if panic didn't set in, I wouldn't be having a problem with not counting it.... ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.") There are only two places where I get into trouble, and one doesn't matter much because the next section is in frame. The other one is an issue. It precedes a turn sequence that I can hit spot on 5 times in a row and then proceed to blow, oh, 3 times in a row. Stressing about exactly where I am in the music doesn't help. And finally, there's one part towards the end that I tend be slow on. At any rate, I decided I wasn't going to get any better today and asked for a switch for the last part of the lesson. Boy, was it nice to be doing something else!