Lindy Groove – September 18th
Welcome to my swing dancing blog, this is my first post. I’ll later have a page on the history of how I got to this point, but for now, I’m just going to be posting the various swing dancing events and venues I go to, starting with last night’s Lindy Groove.
Last night started with a bang! I left hurriedly trying to get to Lindy Groove before 8, when I planned to audition for the advanced class. It’s nerve racking enough auditioning with one of the best follows at Lindy Groove, Debbie Gitt, but I had previously auditioned and I was told to come back in a 1 1/2 to 2 months. That was four months ago.
I arrived with just a couple of minutes before 8, and I rushed to put my dancing shoes on and find a friend with whom I could warmup with. I quickly realized that the only follow that I knew was in the intermediate class. There was no way I was going to audition without warming up first. I walked to the entrance of Lindy Groove hoping I would see a friend arriving, and there was Kathy! She is in the advanced class, and so I had her rush over and told her that I’d like to warm up, as I was about to audition.
Right about when we were going to start, we saw the class had already begun to practice The Big Apple, and so she rushed into class. It was 8:07, there was supposed to be 8 minutes before the actual class started. One thing to know about auditioning, it’s not a set schedule. You ask Debbie if you’re ready, you dance with her, and she lets you know whether you have anything to work on or whether you made it.
Sadly disappointed that I had missed the time to audition, I started wandering away from the class. I knew that the next time to audition was at the end of the class, which would be in about an hour. I started walking away, then back to the main dance floor when Jake, another friend, popped his head out of the door and asked if I would like to just watch. I figured, sure, why not? I walked in, and I saw that there was another lead who was trying to audition, who also decided to watch the class.
Debbie introduced herself to each of us, and let us know how the class works, and so on. She also said that it was lead heavy, meaning they were in need of more follows, not leads. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I decided I wanted to show my dedication and I was going to watch the whole class.
I watched the class, which was interesting. I love The Big Apple but it’s quite confusing. I took a one-hour class about a year before with the legendary Frankie Manning, but I definitely didn’t remember it that well. This was the fifth and last week they had been working on it, and it was a review class.
At the end, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. All the people were going to get their water, bags, and so on, and move to the main dance floor, while Sam, another teacher and friend, was talking about eating. I started talking with Sam, explaining how I didn’t know if it was the best time to audition taking the fact that the class was, indeed, lead heavy. He said just go for it.
Debbie, who had been somewhat wandering, came back and asked me to do some swing outs with her. Just a little bit nerve racking, being asked to dance without warming up at all. In fact I could say my muscles were cold. And so I did, and after two swing out, she started with many corrections. I had to loosen up my arm, while use my fingers less in the back, but keep a strong connection, while keeping my back muscles together… I thought that was it, and I was going to be told to come back.
She then said “Yeah, you’re fine, you just need to bring a follow.” I was shocked. I made it? Great! But, I need to bring a follow to audition. Well, that’s fine, I’m sure I can find someone. Right when I was walking out the door, my friend Jessie walked in. She asked Debbie, “I know I’m not ready for the advanced class but I was hoping you could give me some pointers to work on so that I could prepare for it.”
I paused in the doorway, thinking this could work. She danced with Jessie, gave her many corrections, then also said she was good enough, and that we were both in. I made it!
That was most of the excitement for me that night, but I’ll also note the other significant events. I left the advanced class, found all my friends and was super excited. It was also Etana’s and Alejandro’s birthday that night, which made it an extra special event. My dance partner, Emily, was also bringing a new guy, hopefully a new potential lead.
I decided to try to be a follow and dance with Alejandro, and we were doing great, before we fell. He had decided to go into a mini aerial, and I had no idea how to do it. Boy, did we eat it! We quickly got up, and he decided he wanted to try again. I had figured out what we were supposed to do as we had fallen, so we then did it and finished the dance, a very laughable event.
I was feeling great and having a great time dancing, and using my lack of traction to the best of my ability (due to my dancing shoes). I only mention because as I was dancing with Emily, I decided to try to keep a spin going and throw it into a dip. She lifted her legs off the ground and so was completely airborne as she was spinning. She spun around from being somewhat behind me to being in front of me, and landed softly on her knees, it was awesome! It was entirely due to my shoes continuing to slide.
After Lindy Groove ended, we continued on to IHOP, our weekly tradition as it had been since I started dancing nearly two years ago. At IHOP we continue to dance, though switching now to Blues as opposed to Swing Dancing. It was about this time that I realized I had 4 hours of sleep and was VERY tired. I had several more dances with Emily, and to to blow my own horn, but this is where we do really well.
It was a good night.
Tags: ihop, Lindy Groove, Swing Dancing
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