Swing Lesson

We had a swing troupe lesson at the local dance studio, which was, unfortunately, more frustrating than it was useful. It started out on a bad footing- the teacher a. didn't respond to the fact that this was supposed to be a lesson geared toward our upcoming performance, not a continuation of last week's lindy lesson, and b. when he didn't like that I was talking (and well, I was complaining about him, although I don't think he knew that) during the lesson (bad manners, I know, but he wasn't inspiring good ones), he just moved me- didn't ask me to be quiet, just said- go stand over here, and stay next to tovah623. Not that I mind being next to her- just frustrating. He also didn't do the partner switching well- he just had 2 lines and said "go find a partner", and then "switch". It would have worked better if he'd run it the way CT Swing does: make a circle, and rotate along that circle. THe steps he taught were nice ones, although I could have wished he taught them a bit faster. But the technique was the sort of very basic stuff I learned in my first swing lesson or so (the ones they offer before CSDS- CT Swing Dance SOciety- dances, not even a class, like I took last summer). It gave me real appreciation for Noelle (my teacher over the summer)- who taught things fairly slowly, but got a Lot of technique in there, so that I wasn't real bored, even though I came into a beginners' class knowing some of the stuff, well, much of the stuff, she taught. Honestly, I think that we might be better off seeing if there was someone who teaches stuff to the regular Boston swing community whom we could get to come teach. These folks don't take us seriously, I guess because we're social dancers, we don't compete. It was just a frustrating experience unfortunately. And I don't think it helped our performance much. Oh well.

Swing Lesson

We had a swing troupe lesson at the local dance studio, which was, unfortunately, more frustrating than it was useful. It started out on a bad footing- the teacher a. didn't respond to the fact that this was supposed to be a lesson geared toward our upcoming performance, not a continuation of last week's lindy lesson, and b. when he didn't like that I was talking (and well, I was complaining about him, although I don't think he knew that) during the lesson (bad manners, I know, but he wasn't inspiring good ones), he just moved me- didn't ask me to be quiet, just said- go stand over here, and stay next to tovah623. Not that I mind being next to her- just frustrating. He also didn't do the partner switching well- he just had 2 lines and said "go find a partner", and then "switch". It would have worked better if he'd run it the way CT Swing does: make a circle, and rotate along that circle. THe steps he taught were nice ones, although I could have wished he taught them a bit faster. But the technique was the sort of very basic stuff I learned in my first swing lesson or so (the ones they offer before CSDS- CT Swing Dance SOciety- dances, not even a class, like I took last summer). It gave me real appreciation for Noelle (my teacher over the summer)- who taught things fairly slowly, but got a Lot of technique in there, so that I wasn't real bored, even though I came into a beginners' class knowing some of the stuff, well, much of the stuff, she taught. Honestly, I think that we might be better off seeing if there was someone who teaches stuff to the regular Boston swing community whom we could get to come teach. These folks don't take us seriously, I guess because we're social dancers, we don't compete. It was just a frustrating experience unfortunately. And I don't think it helped our performance much. Oh well.