How are your practices going?

I went to a workshop with Tony Meredith yesterday. Wow, it was great. His ability to explain how to achieve frame and what to think about when turning is super! Now I just need to nail it down. "New young guy" is out of town today and tomorrow, so I'm going to practice it with "Old young guy" tomorrow. (I added an extra practice for this purpose so I can do it soon.)
 
Pro has been super nit-picky the last couple weeks. Like, move-your-elbow-an-inch-to-the-left kind of nit-picky. So, I've been doing a bunch of reps of specific drills and running through my routines excruciatingly slowly to work on all the new technique.

I'm beginning to notice that I'm gaining strength in new places and the detail work is starting to pay off! I spent most of the summer feeling slightly stagnant, so it's a nice feeling.
 
Practices had generally been going well, last week I had to get stitches right in the center of my chest and so I'm out of commission until the skin gets strong enough that I won't reopen the wound. Trying to brainstorm things I can do to get better that won't make me practice bad habits (can't really stand ballroom straight without tugging on the stitches).

So far I've been watching videos from my last comp and breaking down things to work on once I'm healed up but open to any suggestions someone else may have!
 
Lots of solo practice over the last few days because of the holiday. working on arm styling and the new rumba routine.

I may have to take a self-imposed social media break because EVERYONE is apparently USDC/was at Embassy and I AM NOT. I am envious and whiny. mostly whiny. I'll get to go to Ohio again this year... hopefully it will be well attended - it seems like USDC is stealing a bit of its thunder? I dunno, maybe that's just the envy speaking. Would have been nice to go to USDC to see if i could take a few dances from my competition i expect will be at Ohio.
 
Oh gosh.... this sounds weird. But the past two weeks, I feel like I'm actually dancing rather than just "doing steps". I don't know if it's actually true, but i'm starting to be able to feel what's wrong, what's right and what (even if wrong) still feels like dancing.

(OK... I know this doesn't make any sense. It's still pretty rewarding and fun!)
 
It’s been ages since I’ve been on the site...great to see this thread is still active! Hope everybody’s practices are going well.

Unfortunately due to financial considerations I haven’t been able to compete, but I have been dutifully practicing - mostly solo, ugh! - still. Lessons are scarce but luckily I had/have teachers who concentrated on giving me the information to analyze my own dancing....so...continuing to soldier on. While boring, it’s been a good year of growth.
 
Practice Partner and I got together today and things went much better than they did at our lesson last week. We’ve both been paying attention to some posture things, so that’s helped quite a bit. Biggest problem today was that there a couple of places in Tango and Foxtrot where PP insists that when she dances with Pro, he uses a different timing than I do. But I don’t recall Pro using the timing she describes when I’ve danced as a Follow with Pro, and I’ve double-checked the book, too. So, I’m struggling to figure out what she means. Obviously, a question for when we have our next lesson together.
 
I think my Practice Partner is starting to understand that “moving bigger” isn’t just about taking longer steps. The more she tries to force longer steps, the less swing I can get, and that keeps me from actually producing bigger movement. Today, she seemed a bit tired and didn’t have extra energy to force longer steps, so that let me use more swing, and – hey, presto! – we got further down the floor. And, she liked the more swingy movement too.
 
Three weeks since the last standard practice for me and the boys. I was so, so out of practice - and so were they. It was a little better by the end of the practice, though 9 year old is gradually forgetting the routines from the previous studio that don't fit a rectangular floor.

On the plus side, in quickstep, where the 9 year old has abandoned his more complicated routines from our previous studio for basics that his new partner is learning, he is no longer scraping along the walls but is able to manage his positioning on the dance floor much better, anticipating when to take corners rather than waiting to be reminded by bumping into the wall. Also, by trying to duplicate how he sometimes uses Q&Q in place of QQS, I figured out a point of technique that might help him.

7 year old volunteered that he was able to keep up with his quickstep much better! No surprise since what he does is just dance along behind his big brother and try to copy him, which of course works much better when he's copying beginner figures.
 
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