Lindy 1.2
Last Thursday, I had my first Lindy Hop dancing lesson. There is a bit of a story as to how these lessons came about. About two weeks ago Andrea, sent out a group email mentioning that they were in need of leaders for upcoming lessons. A couple of days later along comes another email saying that they were in desperate need of leaders. This caught my attention so I kept a copy of the email on my desk. At the Friday night dance, Andrea asked me if I was going to take the lessons and I was more yes than maybe. A day later I got an email saying that if you replied within 24 hours the lessons would be free as the waiting list of followers was continuing to grow. This was enough encouragement for me to signup for the lessons. The lessons will repeat what I did in an eight course in the spring and I’m looking forward to brushing up on the steps.
Fiddleheads and swing
While out a href=”http://www.geocaching.com”geocaching /a on the weekend I spotted another sign of Spring, a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead_fern”fiddleheads/a. They are one of the first ferns to appear in the Spring and grow very quickly before disappearing. They are a delicacy and have a unique taste when prepareda href=”http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/4198.htm” properly/a.br /br /Last night I had a really fun time swing dancing. It was great for a couple of reasons, a live 20-piece jazz band, a new venue with a dance floor that has a new bounce, dancing a record number of dances in an evening (15) and dancing with many of the folks that I dance with regularly on Friday night. One of the organizer, a href=”http://www.swingdynamite.com/”swing dynamite/a, showcased their latest dance troupe submission to the upcoming Canadian Swing Championship in Montreal in May. I think that they will win an award as their dancing rocked. I am hoping to check out their dance lessons in the future.
Time…time…what time is it?
Tonight (Friday) while running south along the span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1208637574_0″Rideau Canal/span I had an br /interesting experience. A runner was coming towards me from the br /opposite direction as I fumbling with my GPS watch. He started br /pointing at his wrist and shouted time, time, what time is it? I wasn’t br /sure what time he was interested in as my watch was showing that I was br /18 minutes and 34 seconds into my workout as well as being span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1208637574_1″6:45pm/span. I br /shouted back that it was span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1208637574_2″18:34/span which seemed to satisfy him. On the way br /back, I bumped into the speedsters that I run with span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1208637574_3″on Wednesday night/span br /who were doing their warmup. I sped up considerable and they responded br /allow us to do the next two miles at a pace very close to slowest kmbr /interval pace of 4:20. It felt good to burn off a day’s worth of br /stress. At the same time my legs were nicely limbered up for swing br /dancing.br /br /Last night, I had my first of six span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1208637574_4″lindy swing dance lessons/span. We br /reviewed some of the basic moves and spent much of the evening doing br /slow step, slow step, followed by step – triple step – step, with the br /s-ts-s being done on a eight count. They mentioned that it would be br /frustrating at first but if we were patient the prize was out there br /waiting.
The 5-6-7 dancing mystery…
While darting across the uOttawa campus today I spotted a dance troupe doing their routine. As with swing dancing they counted off 5,6,7 and started their dance moves. The question I pose is why don’t we say start off with 1,2,3 or 4,5,6. I also wonder what the origin of the of starting off with 5 as it seems that many other dances in addition to swing dancing use this protocol. Hmm…
Shoes
On Friday, I was looking at my shoes with a smile. There is a little problem with my Keen slip-ons. It is a fatal problem. There is a hole that makes me happy as it is in my forefoot. Hmm, why would this make me happy? A hole in this location means that I have been doing my swing dancing correctly by dancing on my forefoot. The shoes are a year old and have taken me through a challenging winter. When a href=”http://www.rei.com”REI /ahad a fall closeout sale I bought a replacement pair at a fire sale price. This pair is currently getting daily service at the office as I change into them at the start of each work day. When there is a hint of better weather it will be time to retire my well trodden Keen and embrace the new ones.
Swing dancing–Solomon Doulglas Swingtet
The Ottawa swing dancing scene will have a special guest on Friday night the a href=”http://solomondouglas.com/”Solomon Douglas swingtet/a. I bought my ticket a couple of weeks ago as when we have a live band the tickets always sell out. I wasn’t too sure who these performers were so I decided to check out their website and found a really useful and helpful a href=”http://solomondouglas.com/beginner_lindy.html”nugget/a. It is a play list of songs that Solomon uses for teaching the Lindy Hop. It was a sweet find.br /br /I had an incredible past couple of days in Baltimore swing dancing and taking in dancing workshop at a href=”http://www.jhu.edu/”John Hopkins University/a. a href=”http://www.charmcityswing.com/”Charm City Swing/a(CCS) organized the event had a beginner/intermediate tract as well as an advanced. I took the beginner tract and was able to develop a basic grounding in the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop”lindy hop/a which I can now start building on. I really liked the depth that the instructors took to making sure we understood the basics. For example, at the end of the first triple step your body should be at a 90 degree angle from where you started the move, and at the end the first step it should be 135 degrees relative to your starting position and the final triple step is completed 180 degrees from where you started the move. It is details like this that allowed me to visualize and remember where my body needs to be at a certain point in time. The dancing weekend closed out with an hour long blues dancing lessons which was a lot of fun and quite intimate. I learned an enormous amount about swing dancing and how I can improve on the main things I already know. I would like to thank a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com”Jason /aand all the folks at CCS and the many local and imported teachers for a great weekend.br /br /I’m in the midst of drafting a blog of the weekend and will post it later in the week.
Lindy Hop — Swing Dance
At the start of the year I set out a couple of goals that I wanted to achieve in 2008. I am making good progress on many of the goals. One of them is to dance the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop”Lindy Hop/a. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been taking Lindy Hop lessons at the UOttawa which are taught by a couple of students. These lessons have been a lead up to the Lindy Hop weekend in Baltimore at the end of the month. a href=”http://www.charmcityswing.com/”Charm City Swing /ais having a Lindy Hop marathon weekend of 20 hours of lessons and three night of dancing to a live band. I view dancing the Lindy Hop like a journey as the number of the dance moves is broad and it will take a little while to become total comfortable with basic footwork(RS(1-2) TS(3amp;4)-S(5)-S(6)-TS(7amp;8). I want to thank a href=”http://jasonplancaster.com/”Jason /afor suggesting that I come to Baltimore for the Lindy weekend. It has been a relief to find that many of the dance moves in West Coast swing can be translated over to Lindy Hop with a little variation.
Lindy Hop
In less than a month, I hope to achieve one of my New Year’s resolutions which is to dance the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Hop”Lindy Hop/a. I’ve been spending the last little while watching teaching videos on Youtube, but watching is the same as actually doing the moves. The basic steps are a little different, as you do a rock-step/triple-step/step/step/triple-step all on an eight count. My swing dancing current does a rock-step/step-hold/step-hold on a six-count. a href=”http://www.charmcityswing.com/”Charm City swing/a in Baltimore is having a lindy hop workshop weekend at the end of February. As well, one of my favorite jazz band, The Boilermakers will be in Baltimore for one of the nights which will be great. I’ll be heading down to take in the workshop as well as to spend some time chilling.br /br /Workout tonight — 30 minute warmup/7×400 m hills/ 10 minute warmdown
2008 Goals
2008 Goalsbr /br /* Run a 1:30 half-marathon timebr /* Go on more OHOC outdoor adventuresbr /* Do more hiking tripsbr /* Climb more of the 46ers (46 highest peaks in the Adirondacks , NY)br /* Loose 10 lbs by May 30 (race date –National Capital half-marathon)br /* Hike the West Coast Trail/Shenandoah National Park/strikeOld Smoky National Park/strikebr /* Run a faster Baltimore half-marathon ( 1:34 ) in October 2008br /* Visit Brent ( Algonquin Park ) by canoeing and portaging and bring along a digital camerabr /* Reach 500,000 Babble point (now 350,000) www.playbabble.combr /* Do more cycling (road and mountain biking)br /* Geocaching goal 900-1000 finds by Dec 31 2008br /* Become more mobilebr /* Complete an Olympic Distance triathlon (1500m swum/40km cycle/10km run)br /* Swing dancing – Learn the Lindy Hopbr /* span style=”font-style: italic;”Take the train to Baltimore/span
Suggestor—Agreeor
On Friday night, I learned something new about the swing dancing roles. One of the teachers talked about the leader role and follower roles as suggestor and agreeors. The leader will suggest to the follower that they should do a dance move and the follower agrees/doesn’t agree that she wants to do the move. I had never heard the roles talked about this way. But it does make sense as a situation could arise when the leader suggests a move to the follower but for safety reason (risk of a collision with others) the follower might defer making the move. The rotation was fun as well as whenever we heard the Santa “ho-ho-ho” the follower would switch to a different leader. They added in a new dimension to the lesson which sucked a bit as we learned fewer moves. The instructions had to be explained in English and French which slowed things down a bit. One more week of dancing and then the 2007 season finishes.
