I think it's not going to take me as much time as I thought to get back into swing dancing. I was planning on using contra as a way to ramp back up to it, and I thought it would take all summer. I figured I'd have to take it slow, take it easy, not do too much too soon.

Hell with that. Last night's Charleston class went quite nicely, thanks. I kept up both mentally and physically, and felt just fine afterwards. No, not just fine--great. Fantastic. Elated.

Friday night I went to see a production of "Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies" at the Alliance Theater. It was kind of fun being there, since the last time I'd been at the Woodruff Center, I was the hired help.

The show was in the style of a series of nightclub acts. The orchestra lived up to the challenge of playing Duke Ellington's orchestra; the singing was quite good, though one of the female leads was woefully overmiked, and the dancing was great fun. My favorite numbers were the opening act, a lively 20s style Charleston number; and a dance hall scene with the company doing some swing, lindy, and later-period Charleston--including hand-to-hand and tandem. Hey, I can do that! There was even a Frankie Manning signature kick-im-in-the-butt move. (You can see it in the last solo in this clip, from the 1941 movie "Hellzapoppin'.")

Though the program didn't say so, it became evident that they were going for a timeline effect, with the first act covering most the danceable music I was interested in, and the second act covering more blues and post-war jazz. I'm afraid that part didn't hold my interest very well; a lot of the 60s and 70s stuff was very Vegas-y. But it's amazing to realize just how many decades this guy's career spanned, and how adaptable he was to the times.

I realized I forgot to mention the Friday night dance...lest anyone thing I slacked off and didn't dance Friday, au contraire, mes frères, I got at least a good hour and a half in.

Right, so Sunday. Since I'd been out later than planned the night before, and since my Sunday morning ride had to be there early to work the door, I didn't get as much sleep as would have been wise, so I decided to take it easy--by which I mean only three classes instead of four and a half. :) (I didn't so much decide to take it easy, as start dozing off halfway through the afternoon session. Seemed the prudent course to drop out of the rotation before I hurt someone.)

The morning session bore the unlikely name of "Lindy Zo Zow Bop Do Daggety Zu Zu Zoo Hop," and was described as a class on incorporating vernacular jazz steps into your lindy hop. Since I'd just done a vernacular jazz class, and I'm not much for solo dancing, I was interested in seeing just what I could do with this stuff.

It turned out to be a combo lindy/Charleston/jazzy routine. No complaints, though--I learned flying and jump Charleston and a nifty thing the instructors called "horse and carriage." I might even be able to remember how to do it. :) (Choreography notes will come in a later post, suitably cut for those not interested in such things. They'll likely be largely incomprehensible, but this makes a good repository for them.)

So after that brisk early-morning warmup, I met Tim in the lobby for my private lesson. He gave me a lot of good tips on fixing my crippled swingout, which largely boiled down to: relax, dammit. But not too much! Turns out I've been using my arms as a control surface instead of my shoulders, which puts a lot of tension in my frame and results in me getting jerked around the dance floor. So, relaxed arms, but not limp, bc the frame should be carried in the shoulders. He also talked about pulsing into the floor, and maintaining momentum, which is one of my weakest points. The frame tips help with that, plus following through with my hips instead of my shoulders.

So much to think about while I'm dancing! Everyone: pat your head, rub your tummy, chew gum, and walk...now juggle.

Since the private lesson was only a half hour, this gave me time to grab some lunch and still make it to the next session, "Poetry in Motion," a class on musicality and phrasing. Best quote: "New Orleans jazz...is basically a fugue." The instructor put on a Bach fugue for a few measures, then said, "Now, let's listen to something like Muskrat Ramble." And sure enough...a fugue.

This class was a lot of listening and not as much active dancing as the others, so it made a nice break, especially on the second day of the weekend, when everything creaked and crackled when I moved. But then it was time to pick things up a bit, so upstairs I went for some more mad Charleston moves.

"Seriously Jammin' With Some Charleston" just about kick-bent, kick-stepped my ass. There was some great stuff, though--variations on kick-throughs and hand-to-hand, adding in some travelling turns and a neat little pop-turn to switch off places with your partner. Must see if I can remember those. :)

I should have called it quits right about there, but I really wanted to hear what Joel and Melanie had to say about connection...unfortunately, this is where I started getting too tired and overwhelmed for any further instruction to be useful. My brain was full and my tank was empty, and it was time to exercise the better part of valor and call it quits.

I feel grand. I need a massage and a hot soak, in any order you care to name. Every muscle in my body has now been renamed for the dance move I strained it on. I've just discovered the Shorty George muscles...and, oof, there's the jump Charleston. Yep. Good weekend.

"Charleston Vocabulary" was kind of a review of a lot of the side-by-side moves I'd been doing all month with Ben and Gina, with one new flourish on face-to-face--a sort of Charleston-style outside turn. It was a good way to start the weekend, with the little ego boost of "sure, I can do that, no problem!" Which was good, bc my ego took a beating later on...

"Easy Does It" was a class about relaxing your swingout--and mine sure can use it. I took a private lesson Sunday morning with the instructor from this class, Tim Munsell, who gave me some tips on keeping a firm frame without locking up my arms.

The event was set up with two lunch periods that overlapped two classes, so you could pick one lunch period and one class. So after the above-mentioned, I decided to grab my sandwich--only to discover that virtually no one else was doing this. They'd all apparently eaten in the fifteen minute break between classes so as not to miss anything. So I was approximately the only one in the lunch room, and there went my plan of using this time to meet people and socialize and troll for rides (more on that later).

So I finished my lonely sandwich and decided to go watch the second half of the Charleston class going on upstairs. I stayed out of the rotation, since they were teaching an entire routine that I wasn't about to pick up from five minutes of watching everyone else, and just went off in a corner to practice the one move I could pick up. (Savoy kicks, and more on that later, too.)

Then, I was torn between "Intro to Shag" and the enticingly named "Moves to Make her Squeal." I decided I didn't have time to devote to an entire new dance form that I'd probably forget anyway (a single workshop lesson just isn't enough to cement that), and decided to see what the squealing was all about. It turned out (in my case, at least) to be moves to make me yelp in terror: lift moves that nevertheless required me to take both feet of the ground and depend entirely on my partner for support. Yikes. I'm thinking I'd better give up on learning any air steps. (I did finally learn how to sit back into a dip without losing my balance, good news for skellington and other leads who have had to put up with my meeping and clutching.)

This was followed by "Lindy Hoppers Delight," which I sort of wandered into after deciding a few minutes in that the pulse and musicality class wasn't for me. This turned out to be a highlight of the weekend. We learned an insanely fast routine (around 180 bpm, for the musicians out there) that I nevertheless grasped easily and still remember, largely because it was made up of elements I already knew. There were two new tandem variations to learn, but see last entry: thanks to Ben and Gina, I pwn tandem! There was one new move that was pretty easy, and of course, since it was all choreographed, if my lead wasn't always right on the ball, it didn't matter.

That was just Saturday. In fact, that was just the DAY. More on the nighttime dance coming soon.

7 hours of driving, 12 hours of dancing, and I feel like I've been hit by a truck. A truck full of endorphins and adrenaline, but a truck nonetheless.

My swingout's still crippled. Better, but limping. But damn, I sure can Charleston. Tandem Charleston, I pwn you.

Tandem Charleston rocks my little world. I am now, officially, one of the Cool Kids.

Last night we learned hand-to-hand Charleston, which sounds like a martial arts form (fear me! I am a black belt in hand-to-hand Charleston!), but is really a nifty variation on the kick-through we learned last week. (Come to think of it, kick-through sounds kind of like a martial arts move, itself.) We started some facing Charleston, but didn't get too far into it before the end of class. My brain was getting full, so it's just as well.

I really need another lindy class soon, though--my swingout's gone all to hell. skellington and I are considering splitting the cost of a private lesson once or twice a month, figuring it would cost about as much between the two of us as the four-week group sessions, and we'd get more lindy bang for our buck.