Ballroom and Latin Dancing- 10 months on

Since Christmas, we have been in the improvers class and WOW. The difference. Some people in that class have been there 2 years! They dance and you just want to stop and watch them move. Four of us progressed on from the beginner class to the improvers class this semester, but we really are quite far behind in comparison. In many of the dances we have a lot of catching up to do. This semester we learned rumba, which I love, and it’s quite different from everything else we have done so far. The pace of the improvers class is much faster, and I feel like we’ve learned so much since Christmas. My usual dance partner wasn't there one day, so for the first time since I started, I was actually dancing with a man, as a woman! While in theory this sounded good, he kept complaining about my trying to lead...

No, this is not me, but this is a snap from our class!

We added new steps to our quickstep - the lock-step and pivot turn - which we still don’t have quite right so it looks a bit clunky. The cha cha is still probably one of my favourites because it's so up-beat. We got to add a new step called the cross-basic in the cha cha, which is taking a while to get the hang of. Since Christmas we have also spent much more time on swing dancing, and added a new step called the American Spin which is good fun but it makes you so dizzy after a while! It’s one of the only dances where I do the woman’s part, so a few times I got to dance with the teacher, and she's so amazing it's kind of scary to be her dance partner. We added in a "conversation piece" to the Foxtrot as well, so it's nice to have something new in there. When I switched to Monday classes one night, some other people in the class thought I had been doing dance for ages, which was a nice compliment to get.

Towards the end we had a very quick introduction to samba, which I would really like to learn more of because I love the music for it. We also did a "Yearning Saunter" which I think definitely wins the award for the poshest dance title! It is a strange sequence dance that feels as though it belongs in an Austen film adaptation. (I realise that all makes it sound interesting but really it’s more of a yawning saunter).

Before starting dance this year, I had never really grasped how much you have to use your brain for it. And a different part of the brain than usual, at that. But it really is the case that as soon as you start over-thinking the dance steps, you suddenly can't do it anymore. I imagine come September we will have forgotten a lot of what we have learned. The four of us who progressed from the beginner to the improvers class since Christmas are all planning to go back in September, which will be lovely. And I must say I am actually glad now that I learned the man's part, because otherwise it is very easy to allow yourself to be led, and never really learn the steps independently, but learning both parts means I am able to teach other people how to do the same dances.


PS: I have yet again- obviously- failed to take any pictures to actually show I do any of this (sorry). For the end of the Gaisce challenge, I do need to hand in a portfolio with pictures/videos of my various activities, so if anyone wants to volunteer to learn all of these dances and pose for pictures, let me know :P 

Meeting New People

In the space of 2 weeks, I started three new things: dance classes, yoga classes, and volunteering at a charity shop- and didn't know anyone in any of these places. It has been both challenging and incredibly interesting, and in this post I would like to focus on the people I have encountered in my challenge so far.

Myself and Linda
about to start into the Cha Cha Cha

Dance- The Greatest Mood Booster

The dance classes I signed up for were part of a 10 week course, so I have finished the first block now, and I can confidently say I enjoyed every minute. Over the course of the ten weeks, our wonderful teacher, Eithne, has taught us the Foxtrot, the Slow Waltz, the Cha Cha Cha, Swing, Quickstep, and also the Barn Dance (a bit like a Ceili, where everyone continuously changes partners). Eithne is an excellent teacher, so full of enthusiasm and has such a great sense of humour. No matter how my day has gone, I always come away from dance class in a better mood. In the very first week of the course, I met Linda, and due to the imbalance of men and women on the course, we ended up as dance partners for the remaining weeks. Linda is such great fun, but also really determined to get the steps right, and I can't help but smile at the happy little giggle she has whenever we manage a complicated turn. Linda will also be continuing on to the next course this February, so unless more men miraculously appear, I look forward to dancing and having more laughs with Linda.


Yoga

I have really enjoyed getting to know my yoga instructor, Katelyn. She is actually my age too, started practising yoga 5 years ago, began teaching it three years ago, and only in the last year decided to move to Ireland from Canada. I feel very unadventurous in comparison! Most yoga studios have mirrors, but as our one does not, it is difficult to tell if you're doing it right or not, but Katelyn is always really helpful when it comes to making changes in posture (I am terrible at "downward-facing dog"). She makes the classes really inspiring, encouraging us to take the feeling of calm we get from our yoga session out with us afterwards, and it is great for reducing stress.


Volunteer Profiling 

The first volunteer profile

Since I set up the new Facebook page for the Irish Cancer Society in Dun Laoghaire, I have started profiling our volunteers - basically I take a picture of one of them at work, and ask them to tell me how long they have been volunteering with us, what their favourite thing is about working there, and why they chose to volunteer with the Irish Cancer Society in the first place. Our bubbliest volunteer, Catia, featured in our first volunteer profile (shown here on the right). I have really enjoyed doing this project so far, because not only do I get to know my fellow volunteers better, but by putting these posts on Facebook, it also allows them to get recognition for their work. I am looking forward to profiling more of our volunteers in 2017, especially Pauline, who has been there for an impressive 25 years!


I hope you've enjoyed getting to know some of the people I've met during my Gasice challenge so far, as they have made the experience so enjoyable, and even though the activities themselves are exciting, without these people, my Gaisce challenge so far wouldn't be half as special.

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 :)