Dance Off

I enjoyed tonight. My back's knackered but I still enjoyed it. I went out dancing, but only danced about 10 dances total in three hours! And most of those were in the first half hour.
Basically I did my back catching Luca from falling through a climbing frame just over a week ago and it's not been right since.
We taught in Newcastle last Friday and after wincing my way through the lesson (I think I just about managed it without anyone noticing) I didn't dance at all. It was still fun watching, though. I do like to see people enjoying their dancing. And Trisha reported that during the course of the evening, several leads put into practice the turn pattern we'd taught in class. Which was nice.

My back seemed to improve through the week though today it's taken a turn for the worse again. Friends have now started telling me I need to go and see a chiropractor. Sounds a bit scary to me - I'll see how it is after the weekend.

There was a class tonight at the Engine Shed, taught by Rotherham salsa teachers Ian Proctor and Margaret Chapman. I didn't take part but enjoyed doing a Len Goodman (my friend Sylvia played Arlene Philips) from the sidelines. The class was billed as an intermediate/advanced but unfortunately at one point Ian found himself having to teach the concept of "Touch & Go" turns. If you're reading this from a non-salsa point of view, then you'll have no idea what I'm talking about, but if you're an intermediate level (or above) salsa dancer then you ought to know exactly what I mean. I say ought to, but of course, levels change between different teachers, different clubs, different towns, etc and one of the hardest jobs for a guest teacher is setting the level for a class filled with people they don't know from Adam. We seem to be able to get it spot on at Newcastle every time but when we taught at the Engine Shed in February we pitched it far too high and prepared a turn pattern replete with at least four "non-orthodox" moves many wouldn't have seen before, in a routine that was simply too long. to be honest, when we ran the same lesson past our own intermediate class at Wetherby the following week, we struggled to get through it, though admittedly we were adding a fair amount of detail.
Since then we've honed the way we approach guest teaching, and in fact teaching in general, trying to give the dancers something they can use, either in routine or in technique, that's concise enough for them to be able to remember (and use) more than 5 minutes after the class has finished. We don't always get it right (except for Newcastle, of course) but we're trying, and I believe we're improving.
Maybe my back will improve soon, too...?