The Entries on Socials series have been discontinued. I'm archiving them here for future references.
14th August
So I decided to check out Mosaic's WCS social dance floor (before university work starts to pile in) just to see how different it is than Jitterbugs's scene. Apparently the same people are there (with the exception of some other people who take classes at Jitters)
I found out one of the primary reasons why my knees feel like jelly everytime I'm done with socials - my centre of gravity is too low. So I took Zee's advice and brought it up to the core instead of below it, and I felt a lot better, looked a lot better, and had more stamina.
However, I'm still having a hard time juggling two seemingly contradicting rules in West Coast Swing, that is the travel a lot rule with the take small steps rule. I'll try to figure this out with time.
Acronym of the day: NTU WCS CCA FTW. I am so doing this organising thing.
Update in 2013: I decided to take on a dance scholarship rather than organise a west coast swing club in my university...I wonder how different will my dancing life be then?
17th August
I got really tired on the second half of my socials and I have no idea how. It came like a cloud of lethargy hitting me hard on the face and suddenly I was going off beat in WCS more often than I usually do.
However, in the first half (meaning the salsa half), I felt fine. But I'm beginning to see that my salsa is subpar compared to my west coast swing. I can still follow, but I think I've shied away with styling and became less daring since my shines vocabulary is still limited. I have to buck up somehow, but I am seeing myself enjoy west coast swing a lot better nowadays. Unless my new salsawesome 3 classes kicks my butt and go DO THIS COMBO AND THAT COMBO AND PUT IT TOGETHER YOU GET SOMETHING AWESOME. Or that I'll need to watch more salsa videos. Or stuff. Idk.
One memorable quote from yesterday coming out from a stranger to Zee (aka Mosaic Dance's director) : "How good are you?" (in the context that she was completely new to the scene. She had no idea what was coming.)
25th August
You know you had an eventful social dance night...when you had to sustain multiple leg injuries (aka getting stepped on), having your salsa teacher scream "KING OF THE WORLD!" out of the blue as he lead the titanic in class before socials, and getting cut in to go for a dance while you're trying to lead the whip on your girl friend. Ahh, it was fun for me last night.
I also found out one of the primary reasons why I always take big steps in both partner dances was because I don't clip my inner thighs together (I guess this is where the duck walk comes in) and I still have the bad habit of turning on my heels when I lose balance (mainly because WCS heels have a bigger surface area)
Aside from my faults, I finally figured out how the touch and go New York prep double turn works now! This is how the lead gets you to switch to left over right crossed handhold to lead into the titanic. I may want to elaborate more on the technique soon, but right now I want to catch up with my beauty sleep. Till then!
1st September
Today's socials had more people in it, maybe it's due to Melissa Rutz and Chuck Brown being there to party it up. I didn't have my chance to dance with Chuck though…
I feel like I'm hitting a plateau in my technique nowadays. Hopefully by going to Melissa and Chuck's workshop I can better myself in West Coast Swing. As for salsa, I'm beginning to lose my interest in it, but hopefully it's something temporary, it's still a fun dance!
8th September
It's fun to be the lead once you grasp the concepts down for WCS. The only pain is that I gotta know how to balance and root myself down so that I can redirect the follow better in the whip.
I've also got my salsa game back on! I feel like I can follow better now, but I still have to stop taking such big steps when dancing. The weird thing is that I find that the steps I take in west coast swing feels ideal, yet in salsa they feel too big. I wonder why?
16th September
I now realise what is it I'm doing wrong with the whip. I'm not squaring out during 3 & a 4, and not whipping the follower during 5 6. I shall get to a tutorial on the whip soon.
Anyway, doing salsa 3 moves on socials have been fun. Observing the tense look of the leads while I try to execute what was learnt in class - it's quite like doing choreographed partner work. If your guy fails, you have to make up for the mistake and still make him look like he's doing the move right. Along with that, I realised that I haven't been using my salsa heels for a long time, so my calves have been hurting since two days ago.
Moreover, I'm thinking about refining my dance technique further and joining the DAP programme, but I'm not sure how that would affect my studies. I don't want it to be like last time when I got into the salsa team and set my expectations up high, only to turn the offer down later because my parents don't agree to it...
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