Not quite Strictly!

This week's blog covers the Ballroom and Latin Dance classes to date. 

The course I chose for dance classes covers a few different ballroom and Latin dances. So far, we have done the Foxtrot, the Waltz, and the Cha Cha Cha. Luckily the dances we have been doing so far have very similar steps for men and women- the steps just mirror one another. I always go to class with great intentions of taking photos for the blog, but always get so caught up in the dancing that I forget. I will try to get some next week, but in the meantime, I am including Youtube tutorials which cover some of the steps we have been learning.

The first dance of the course was the Foxtrot, and I am feeling much more comfortable with that one now. The Foxtrot is always danced in 4/4 time, so we mostly end up dancing to Frank Sinatra songs, and some Bobby Darin.

We progressed from the Foxtrot onto the Waltz, which I think everyone has an idea of, but I realised I had no clue what I was doing. At home I tried to practise to some of the well-known waltz music, like the Blue Danube or Shostakovitch's Second Waltz, but they are way too fast for the waltz we learned, which looks something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCch-zPc_BY. Instead, I figured out our waltz fits much better with the Godfather theme tune!

We also started into the Cha Cha Cha, which is so exotic compared to the other two. It's such a show-off dance, but is very fun (and fast). While I enjoy the Cha Cha Cha, I find it much harder to stay on beat with those particular songs. The easiest one we danced to so far was the Pussycat Dolls' cover of Sway. 

We are already in the eighth week of the ten week course- it has flown by. The people in my class are so lovely, and we're all really enjoying the course. Everyone watches Strictly Come Dancing, so - much to my Dad's horror - I've started watching it too. Ed Balls may get a lot of criticism for his dance skills, but he's still leagues ahead of us all! Unfortunately, the follow-up course won't start till the end of January, so I'll try to find some other dance course to fill the gap. If anyone knows of anywhere good, let me know.

I hope you've enjoyed the deeper insight into each activity I'm undertaking for the Gaisce challenge. The next blog post will cover my progress in all three activities- thanks for reading :)