Tango Argentino.

The Zouk festival shook out the last remains of my dance burn out depression, but I had to start dancing this week slowly because my back and feet were hurting a lot after dancing so much during the festival weekend. My feet were actually full of blisters and it was even painful to walk for couple of days! There would have been a Valentine's Day Bachata party in Havanna where I would have loved to go, but I decided to listen to my body and stay home. On Wednesday both Michaelo and Mr A. canceled our practices (tut-tut for both of you!), so I had to wait until Thursday to pull on my dancing shoes again. This time HOT-Dancing offered Salsa in the intermediate and Rumba in the advanced class.

I have created a weird attitude towards Salsa. Last summer I absolutely loved dancing Salsa and tried to induce Nic to any Salsa party I could find. Now I feel like Salsa music don't really inspire me and I haven't been to any Salsa party for ages. At it's best, Salsa is an extremly energetic and fun dance but lately I have had a feeling that I am not getting into the Salsa mood. I guess my problem is that I used to dance so much Salsa with Nic and only with him, so following someone else is just not that simple for me. I think I should take some Salsa classes or just hit some Salsa parties and start everything from the beginning.

Dancing Salsa in HOT's classes or its parties is quite different compared to "normal" Salsa parties. No offense, but many dancers in HOT don't have the right body control nor the attitude for latin dances. Salsa without flirting or lets-have-crazy-fun-attitude is like food without spices; plain and unexciting. If you don't know anything else than basic step and couple of figures, just do them with an attitude and you'll be fine! I cannot feel like the dance was successful if my partner didn't give me a single smile or wink during it. Anyway, on Thursday's Salsa class we went through some basic things and figures to cross-body Salsa. It was surprisingly hard to follow some leaders, and I am not sure if it was me or them doing something wrong. At least I got some positive feedback on my "latin-like" movement.

Rumba class continued where we left last week and introduced some new figures for us. The most difficult thing for me in Rumba at the moment is the right amount of press and sense of weightiness. Also, since Nic taught me to keep my upper body still, I should learn how to activate my chest and sides during Rumba. It seems that most of the dancers just want to learn new figures, but for me it is the technique training that gives me the most. Fortunately I can concentrate on my body movement while my partner is learning a figure since, as a follower, I don't really need to remember single figures if I just can follow the lead. I am hoping for some more technique practices and less figures on next week's Rumba class though.

The Tango teachers.

On Friday I went to my first Argentine Tango class. First I didn't really feel like going there since I know how difficult the dance is, but it turned out to be a real beginner class and, even better, free of charge, so there was no reason skipping it. Besides, I have been wanting to try this dance for a long time. I had been dancing Argentine Tango with Mr A. couple of times before (read: he tried to lead and I desperately tried to follow with not so good results), but those times didn't really seem to affect to the fact how lost I was in this dance. My posture was wrong, my balance was bad and my stepping horrible. I must have had a funny I-am-trying-to-concentrate-to-hundred-things-look in my face for the whole class; everything was so new for me. Even though I usually hate being out of my comfort zone, the Zouk festival must have taught me some patience, since being lost didn't feel that uncomfortable at all this time. The class consisted some leading/following, stepping and turning practices. In total, I liked the class but I couldn't just go dancing Argentine Tango after this. Let's see if I start taking some classes after March when I start having some more time in my week schedule.

After the Tango class I headed to Pohjalaisten tanssikerho's dance party. This time they had two dance floors and playlists, one for quick and other for slow dances. I heard many complaining about this division, but I thought it was a good idea. This way there was more opportunities to dance your favorite dances and the dance floor wasn't as crowded as usually. They also had a cute Valentine's Day game: you drew a playing card when you entered the party and tried to find your match among your dance partners; the first ones to find their match were rewarded with a small prize. Although the party was good (you could argue the opposite about some of the music choices though) and there were quite a lot good leaders, somehow I didn't reach my dance mood that evening and decided to go home soon after midnight.

Yesterday I had my first practice with Michaelo after last weekend's festival. The practice ended up being one of those crazy practices where we fool around and laugh so much my abs start to hurt, but we still managed to review all of the 10 figures from the festival. I noticed that since the teachers have quite different Zouk styles, we cannot use all of the figures without changing a style quite radically in the middle of the dance, which won't go. What I would like my zoukking to be is a weightless follower who can react to sudden movements and signals fast and precise. Many lambada movements, for example, require quite a lot of press, and then a light connection is not enough. As a follower I have to adapt to my partner's lead, of course, but then again leaders also have to adapt to their partner too. What comes to me and Michaelo, I'm hoping that I'm having some more influence on our style than just adapting. Good thing is that we have a good understanding about this and want quite same things.

After our fun practice we had an intention of getting drunk - it was a Saturday night after all - but failed and managed to drink only one bottle of sparkling while watching a movie. No drunken opening up this time then! Oh, and I need to point out to my previous posting, how much Michaelo enjoyed the Zouk festival as well, and how nice he was helping me to ask the professionals to dance with me (our plan was to dance the previous song right next to the dancer I wanted to dance with so I could easily grab that person for the next dance. Sneaky!).

By the way, I have had this song in my head for days already, so I thought to share it with you: