Ice Dance Class #1-1
I had my first ice dance group lesson at the Ice Den. I managed to get off work at 4:30 and made it up to the Den by 5:10 -- traffic was not nearly as bad as I was expecting (it's 25 miles). So I was all ready to go with plenty of time to spare.
There were 7 of us in the class, 4 kids and 3 adults. I was the only male. We had 3 (!) instructors (Julie, Tim, and I can't remember the main instructor's name ;-( ), and a junior coach (Katie) helping out... kind of overkill but it was nice.
We started with a warmup of stroking, swizzles, slaloms etc. I'd forgotten how hard a lap of swizzles is! My quads were complaining :-(. Then we worked on edges, swing rolls, progressives, chassés, and slide chassés. I'm really grateful to my first coach, Anna, because my chassés and slide chassés were pretty good actually!
After that we started with the Dutch Waltz. We talked over the steps and then we worked through it a few times, then with music. I had a really hard time remembering the steps -- I really should have looked at it before class! Grrr.
Then we went on to the Canasta Tango. Same procedure. I got rather lost and one of the instructors, Julie, grabbed my hand and guide-dogged me through it several times. I can do the moves I just could not for the life of me remember them :-( which was a problem I really didn't expect to have. I felt kind of dumb to have to have her help, but I was grateful for it.
Then, since we were doing really well, apparently, we went ahead to the dreaded Rhythm Blues (yes, the one with the stripper music, lol! Although we actually had "Blueberry Hill") with the tuck-behinds. I totally can't do those and Tim suggested I just do a slide chassé for now. Hmmph. Anyway I was pretty much totally lost on this dance.
One quick repeat of the Dutch Waltz and we were out of time... until next week!
It was definitely a good workout! I wasn't too happy with how I did, I was definitely the slowest person all the time and I really stunk at the steps. On the other hand I had nicer slide chassés than most of the others (they kept turning their feet out?). I particularly noticed that I have a hard time getting a nice curve on my swing rolls -- it seems like others have a deeper edge and more lean than I do on the outside swing rolls :-(. Grr.
Anyway I will definitely have to look at this stuff (at SOME point) before next class.
There were 7 of us in the class, 4 kids and 3 adults. I was the only male. We had 3 (!) instructors (Julie, Tim, and I can't remember the main instructor's name ;-( ), and a junior coach (Katie) helping out... kind of overkill but it was nice.
We started with a warmup of stroking, swizzles, slaloms etc. I'd forgotten how hard a lap of swizzles is! My quads were complaining :-(. Then we worked on edges, swing rolls, progressives, chassés, and slide chassés. I'm really grateful to my first coach, Anna, because my chassés and slide chassés were pretty good actually!
After that we started with the Dutch Waltz. We talked over the steps and then we worked through it a few times, then with music. I had a really hard time remembering the steps -- I really should have looked at it before class! Grrr.
Then we went on to the Canasta Tango. Same procedure. I got rather lost and one of the instructors, Julie, grabbed my hand and guide-dogged me through it several times. I can do the moves I just could not for the life of me remember them :-( which was a problem I really didn't expect to have. I felt kind of dumb to have to have her help, but I was grateful for it.
Then, since we were doing really well, apparently, we went ahead to the dreaded Rhythm Blues (yes, the one with the stripper music, lol! Although we actually had "Blueberry Hill") with the tuck-behinds. I totally can't do those and Tim suggested I just do a slide chassé for now. Hmmph. Anyway I was pretty much totally lost on this dance.
One quick repeat of the Dutch Waltz and we were out of time... until next week!
It was definitely a good workout! I wasn't too happy with how I did, I was definitely the slowest person all the time and I really stunk at the steps. On the other hand I had nicer slide chassés than most of the others (they kept turning their feet out?). I particularly noticed that I have a hard time getting a nice curve on my swing rolls -- it seems like others have a deeper edge and more lean than I do on the outside swing rolls :-(. Grr.
Anyway I will definitely have to look at this stuff (at SOME point) before next class.
Labels: Group Lessons
posted by Gordon @ 12:51 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home