Damn - ok, so I hadn't made as much progress and I thought. True, Will could tell I was trusting my edges more, but my body alignment had gone to hell (have I mentioned yet that I miss the mirrors?). Once he got that straightened out, he bumped my progressives up a notch and has me refining the footwork. It's complicated to explain, but when you bring in the outside leg, it actually touches the ice on the OUTSIDE first and then you bring it around to cross in front of the inside leg while it's still touching the ice - then your body weight naturally transitions, so the whole thing is a lot smoother. I get it, and can even do it once in a while - that's going to take some time. And I still can't do it for shit on my right side.
Let me explain. Most dancers have one "smart" leg and one "dumb" leg. In other words, you can turn better on one side, you jump better from one leg than the other, and for most dancers the smart leg is the right one. I've always been backwards from that (no snide comments) - my left leg is the smart one, and I really struggle with the stupid righty. So progressives to the left are AOK, and to the right I'm back doing my drunken duck imitation. I'm just going to have to start getting really disciplined during my workouts and spend at least twice as much time on my off side as my good one.
Will also gave me an exercise to do to help strengthen my forward stroking - and I can already tell I'm going to hate it - my ass hurt after just one time, and it's STILL freakin' sore. I better have the tightest, cutest ass on the planet when this is all done or I'm going to be seriously pissed.
The good news is that Will threw a step at me today - a REAL step! It's called a "swing roll", and it's one of the building blocks of the first couple of dances. It's actually a lot of fun - it's a bear to figure out how the weight changes happen though. This one is going to haunt me for a while. This is one of those things that my "dancer brain" completely and totally understands, and my body is just too stupid to follow instructions. But now that I have swing rolls, I have progressives, chasse's, and swing rolls, which are evidently all the building blocks I will need to learn my actual first dance! Woo Hoo! I gotta get control of these buggers first, though, so I have lots of incentive now!
At the end of my lesson, I showed off my T-stops (which he showed me at my lesson two weeks ago). I have them down pat and can toss them off without thinking now.
So all in all, this was an ego-positive lesson, and DAMN do I have a lot to work on now. I have to get disciplined about getting to the gym EVERY SINGLE MORNING because it's the only way I'm going to get control of this stuff so I can start learning a real dance.
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1 comment:
I am soooo impressed. And loving your blog. I know you don't have time to go to yoga classes, but have you considered buying a dvd and doing a yoga routine at home to remind yourself to compare you only to you? Let judges compare you to others. You need only to do yourself one better. xoxoxo Keep up the hard work and I KNOW you're going to be a star!
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